


The Anatomy of Snow

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Addiction, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shop, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Library, Angst, Did I say angst?, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mind Palace, Past Drug Use, Pining Sherlock, Self-Harm, Sherlock Whump, Sherlock is vulnerable, Smut, Therapy, Unilock, buying into the cliches and basking in them, past drug abuse, recovering drug addiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-22
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-04-27 13:01:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5049577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Sherlock arrives before the staff does. The lights haven’t been turned on yet, so morning light filters weakly through stained glass windows and between shelves, illuminating centuries of dust falling against long shadows. He climbs the curving marble staircases, weaves his way through the stacks, and passes solemn statues until he reaches his nook, tucked away behind a long shelf of tomes on soil-forming processes on the fifth floor, deep in the heart of the library. "</p><p>Sherlock Holmes: former violin prodigy, coffee lover, chemist, Cambridge student, recovering drug addict.</p><p>Can he keep it all together?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Coffee

**Author's Note:**

> TW: depictions of past drug abuse. 
> 
> Thank you for reading! Kudos, comments, and bookmarks are always welcome.
> 
> For F

Sherlock arrives before the staff does. The lights haven’t been turned on yet, so morning light filters weakly through stained glass windows and between shelves, illuminating centuries of dust falling against long shadows. He climbs the curving marble staircases, weaves his way through the stacks, and passes solemn statues until he reaches his nook, tucked away behind a long shelf of tomes on soil-forming processes on the fifth floor, deep in the heart of the library. No one really comes here and no one’s ever stumbled into his spot. Even the geology students don’t make it this far. He supposes the books cover obscure subjects that are rarely taught, and it’s not actually a designated study spot. He dragged the couch, armchair, and study carrel here himself. No one noticed. He’s even spent entire nights here because the security guards don’t sweep through this area when the library closes at 2 AM. People don’t notice things, he’s learned. He counts on that.

The silence, equal in this wild spot both in the empty mornings and packed evenings, is beautiful. In all his years studying music, he’s always thought that the most eloquent moments are when the instruments die away and leave a hole in the patchwork. Sometimes when there’s silence, he feels it in himself, too, a big gaping spot where he aches. He swings his book bag off his shoulder but keeps his coat on. The library is always cold first thing in the morning.

There’s an art to mornings in the university library. There’s routine. Sherlock likes that. It steadies him. Sitting in his carrel, easy light falling from the narrow latticed windows, he takes a sip of scalding hot coffee from the coffee shop next to the ground floor atrium—and promptly chokes. It’s a simple order—black, two sugars, dark roast, but the girl working there must have been asleep still. It’s a latte. Sherlock swallows quickly but the taste lingers. He can’t stand lattes. He doesn’t get what the big fuss about foam is. It’s like drinking soap. Even the fancy lattes Mycroft makes for himself with his huge machine—too snobbish even for the most refined coffee shop—taste disgusting. Mycroft says he’s got not taste; Sherlock says it’s the other way around.

Scowling now, the sanctity of the morning ruined, he grabs his wallet and heads back down to the coffee shop. _Stupid, stupid, stupid,_ he berates himself, _you should have timed it so the other barista could help you. But no, you just had to rush._

This is why he needs his routines. On good mornings, the perfunctory interactions with whichever barista is working don’t bleed into his psyche. When he ascends to his workplace, it’s just him and the library and the quiet, and he’s able to burrow somewhere deep inside himself and work and _think_ without catering to the whims of his transport. He knows it’s not going to happen today. The land his mind palace sits on is already shaking and groaning. The coffee hasn’t fueled it well enough. Entering the palace will be like falling into a raging sea. It’ll be like drowning without death. He’ll be trapped, thrown around ceaselessly in cold, unpleasant water.

He knows this dependence on caffeine, this craving, is because he built his mind palace deep in his cocaine years. It is the last of the dependence he really feels—the last weakness he has toward the substance. He can resist it physically now—doesn’t feel the pull to the drug—but sometimes—sometimes he just can’t _think._ He would be sharper with the cocaine, brilliant.

Reaching into his mind, he uproots the thought and snaps it into two, a clean break. He’s got to stop this; he knows this just as well as he believes in the cocaine. He’s got to keep remembering: cocaine doesn’t love him back. It doesn’t feed him or keep clothes on his back or keep him warm. He scans the horizon for more of the traitorous trees—the gnarly ones that grow lopsided and bent—and sees none this morning. He breathes deep. He’ll just have to descend to the human level to get his coffee today, and taint the pristine white snow of the palace grounds.

He barely sees that he’s passed the ornate reading room, the marble stairs, and the echoing atrium and has charged into the coffee shop, but a chirpy voice rings out like a bird from hell.

“Oh, you’re back!”

Sherlock’s head snaps up. He bites back a snarl at the sight of the overweight girl with her purple hair in pigtails. His bites back much more. He can tell she has crabs from sleeping with Kentucky Murdoch on the football team (balance of probability—the man sleeps with _everyone_ and his hygiene is literal shit), that she is failing her political science class, and that she didn’t brush her teeth this morning. What he says instead is, “You got my order wrong.”

The girl’s eyebrows rise as she takes a step back. He must have been too flat, he muses. People tell him—Mummy and Mycroft do, at least—that he could work on his delivery. “I asked for black coffee, dark roast,” he says, not changing a damned thing about his delivery. In fact, he exaggerates his public school drawl and clips the t on “roast”. It’s a wonder that this girl isn’t failing more classes. “You gave me a latte.”

“I—sorry,” the girl says. “Erm…”

Yes, it’s _definitely_ a wonder she isn’t failing more classes. He glares at her.

“Do you not realize what an important job you have?” he begins, savoring each word in his mouth with relish. “My whole day is ruined now. Wake up, for god’s sakes, and get the order right! Smell the coffee! Whatever you people say!”

He intends to go on, but the kitchen door swings open and another barista appears, arms laden with a stack of heavy boxes. “Hey, Emma,” he says, face obscured by the boxes, concentrating on not dropping them, “switch?”

The girl runs off all too eagerly and begins stocking juice bottles.

“How can I help you?” the other barista says.

Sherlock turns from deducing more about the girl (gained twenty pounds last semester, has a crush on economics professor) and all thoughts of tainted snow melt away.

“I couldn’t help but hear the conversation you were having with Emma,” the barista continues. “I hope everything’s alright?”

Sherlock frowns down at the man, thrown. No one mentions his occasional bouts of rudeness, and never in a nice way—and he basks in both of these things, truly. Having that taken away is hardly a _hardship_ but for some reason—and to his intense mortification—he hears himself stuttering. “I—yes—it’s nothing,” he says, and to top it all off, he feels his cheeks start to redden. _God_ why he’s blushing he has no idea, he hasn’t blushed since he was fourteen and had his first—and he had resolved, _last_ —crush on Jason Knight. Even through his relationship with Victor, he hadn’t really blushed.

The man smiles at him. “I’m glad,” he says. “Would you like to order? I’m sure we can find _some_ way to reimburse you for that botched order.” He smiles wider at Sherlock for a second, then drops his gaze. Warmth floods Sherlock’s stomach. For a moment, he feels like everything is tingling. He can feel his stomach gurgling with emptiness, his ears a bit cold from the fall chill outside; he can hear the rasp of the slightly dry skin on his hands as he folds them together, his feet firmly on the ground now, tingling away as he moves them towards the counter.

“Er—just black—black coffee—and… dark roast.” Oh God, how tedious. What’s wrong with him? He’s acting like that imbecilic barista—that girl—what was her name? What’s next, that stupid lisp he only managed to shake off in sixth form?

He tunes out, sinking in waves of shame and furiously willing his cheeks to lose their color. For god’s sake, it’s only a barista—to all intents and purposes a normal looking, normally functioning barista….

“Here you are!” And a large, nimble fingered hand is setting possibly the largest cup of coffee he’s ever seen in front of him. He surfaces, and whatever control he’s held onto is lost.

“Oh—thank you. Erm… have I paid yet?” he asks distantly, cheeks flaming again. ( _Oh God,_ he thinks, _this is really happening._ )

The barista chuckles. “Oh, you already did, but I did get you an extra large cup to compensate.”

Oh. Well, he did tune out didn’t he? He’s rather good at running on autopilot, judging from the time he pelted Mycroft with turnips with startling accuracy while sleepwalking….

He lifts the lid off the cup and takes refuge in ducking his head in the warmth. He takes a small sip, careful of burning his tongue, and…

… ah. There it is. The purity of the coffee hitting his taste buds in a beautiful, perfect rush equal to his favorite seven percent solution. This is what Mycroft and all the other fools in London are masking, diluting behind foam and milk and cream. The richness, the depth, the layers of taste in a good cup of coffee. That exquisite bolt of clarity that sweeps him off his feet. He closes his eyes, hands wrapped tightly around the warm cup, and inhales, steam unfurling wetly into his mouth, the lush, flawless perfume of his coffee rising into his nose.

“You really like coffee, don’t you?”

He starts. The barista’s eyes are sort of a subtle shade of blue. He takes a breath. They’re staring directly into his, which inexplicably unseats him.

He’s supposed to say something here, he knows. Social convention and all that. But his heart is finally beating, and he’s noticing things like the dark, calm blue of the barista’s eyes—he opens his mouth and “How can the same coffee shop make such a horrible and such a good cup of coffee in the span of an hour?” is what comes out of his mouth wonderingly. And he cringes—he’s trying so hard to be good and normal and not shake things up ( _wrong_ —he only tries sometimes), and after the drugs and all the bad things that happened, he _wants_ to be good and normal and calm ( _wrong_ —he only wants these things occasionally).

And— _thank god_ —to Sherlock’s surprise the man chuckles. “You know, at first I thought you were just one of those unbearable posh people,” (and yes, Sherlock can place a bit of a South London accent hiding under the carefully constructed RP accent that undoubtedly helps the barista blend in with the public school toffs who seem to intimidate everyone at Cambridge) “but you actually appreciate it. Coffee, I mean.”

Sherlock hums, nodding. The barista continues. “We don’t usually see people in here this early—are you new?”

“I haven’t seen _you_ around. Are _you_ new?” Sherlock shoots back. Then he blushes. _Oh god, Mycroft and Mummy are right,_ he thinks frantically. _To have his default tone set like this…._

But the man laughs again, a kind, genuinely amused laugh. Relief floods through Sherlock. “You’re right, I’m new. I just started last week. This is my first time opening the shop. So you’re a regular?”

“Yes,” Sherlock amends. “Well—I guess I’m sort of new—I’m a first year—but I’m here every morning.”

“Nice to meet you,” the man says, stretching out his hand though Sherlock hasn’t introduced himself. “I’m John Watson, third year, in the medical program. What are you studying?”

“Sherlock Holmes—I’m in the chemistry and music programs.”

John Watson’s hand is pleasantly dry and firm. His stomach warms again. He’s feeling odd with the man’s calm lake blue eyes on him, and it might be the coffee—but he can feel the ends of his fingertips and the warm air against his face.

He blinks and takes his hand back. John smiles at him again. His smile has the odd effect of arresting Sherlock’s arm, which has made its way to his face so he can have another sip of his coffee. “That’s pretty cool, and tough. A lot of people can only handle one subject,” John says.

“But medicine is hard too, a lot more time studying…” Sherlock says, fumbling. He hides his face in his cup again.

Perhaps the other man picks up on his unease, because he says, “Well, it was nice meeting you, Sherlock. I’ll let you go before people start coming in.” And he _winks._ No one winks at Sherlock.

Sherlock manages a smile before leaving. He keeps his head down until he’s standing in a window seat overlooking the atrium, where he can see several students making their way into the coffee shop. He turns and climbs away from the growing throngs and ducks into the last of the weak morning light.

*

In his nook, he sips at his coffee. It’s perfect. Its warmth and taste envelope him. He loves it so much he wouldn’t mind drowning in it. The sun begins to fall more strongly against his face. His shrugs off his coat and soaks in the light. When the coffee is finished, he lies down on the couch, head supported by a knit pillow. He crosses his ankles and presses his hands together against his chin.

Eventually, he rolls over onto his side so his back is pressed against the back of the couch and he’s clutching another pillow tightly to his stomach. He curls his knees up. He can’t think. His mind is stuck on that coffee. For some reason, the silence is eating into the hole inside him more than usual, in a way that isn’t welcome. It’s usually a good ache, centering, but now he just wants to curl up and while time away, concentrating on taking deep, slow breaths. He hurts and he doesn’t know why.

It’s the coffee, he supposes. When he was four he’d heard Mummy say it was a weak form of cocaine. He hadn’t known what it meant, but now it’s like puzzles sliding into place. It’s too perfect, the cup of coffee that John Watson made for him. Too perfect and not enough.

He thinks about the parting wink John gave him and his warm, kind smile. He knows perfectly well what just happened, now that he’s away from the source of the pandemonium. _It was only a matter of time,_ he thinks, _before I developed a crush_ (god how he hates that word) _on a supplier of the only acceptable stimulant I can get my hands on now_. And he thinks of the snow white of the cocaine palace in his mind and John’s sunshine colored hair. He’s calculated and thought out every possibility in that mind of his, has made a chessboard of the dreary white snow against the twisting grey background.

Good men don’t associate with—(don't date)—drug addicts, not even reformed ones. He only has to roll up his sleeves and look at the ugly constellation of scarred track marks on the crooks of his arms—some still healing—to remind himself of this fact. And drugs aside, there are still a whole slew of things John Watson won’t want to know—that Sherlock doesn’t want to share. Even he doesn’t want to think about some parts of himself. He is abhorrent.

He clutches the pillow tighter, resting his chin on it. He’s jumping the gun. He doesn’t even know if John was merely being polite and placating towards a customer that had stormed in. He doesn’t know if this is just John’s default setting, just like his default is to be cutting and arrogant. Perhaps John is just a natural flirt.

He has the fleeting thought that for a minute when John spoke to him, he forgot to deduce anything, that his mind had been quiet and his feet had been on the floor and he had felt his own body thrumming in high definition. He supposes had he not let the moment sweep him away, he would have managed to deduce John and he wouldn’t have so many lingering concerns over him. He would even know whether or not John was a good man, and whether he would associate with him. And in that same fleeting moment, Mycroft’s voice sounds in his head: “ _Don’t get attached, brother dear,”_ and this time he agrees with Mycroft.

John Watson is dangerous.

He deletes him.

 

He aches and he doesn’t know why. But he has come here to learn, and to keep his head down. He’s five months clean. Cambridge has been very generous to offer him a place. He sets aside the ache, opens a chemistry textbook, and begins to work.

 

 

 


	2. Dissonance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING in this chapter for dubious consent, drugs. Take care of yourselves.
> 
> Thank you all for your wonderful feedback in the previous chapter!! Every kudo, comment, bookmark, and subscription made my day. They'll be saved in my kudo bank for rainy days.
> 
> I'm not sure if this chapter works, but I thought I should post before I get too caught up in my head. I'm also holding my breath because I'm new to writing smut. We'll see how it goes, lol.

“Well, Sherlock, it’s certainly…” Professor Bodeen’s eyebrows are disappearing into his nest of white hair. Sherlock imagines them as worms that baby birds will soon destroy. He smirks.

“The dissonances are symbolic of the anxiety that colors every waking moment. The few moments where there is harmony are actually where the most discomfort is,” he says, pointing out the few places where the music strips down to only a simple, haunting counterpoint. “Dissonance becomes comfortable. That’s what I’m trying to teach the listener.”

Professor Bodeen’s thin, age spotted hands fold together. “I do hear what you are saying, Sherlock,” he says patiently, pouring over the score that Sherlock has painstakingly and lovingly composed, “and if I may speak truthfully, this is… _very_ good” (Sherlock puffs up) “as I’m sure you know” (Sherlock struggles to deflate) “but I’m not sure that it fulfills the assignment.”

“But—Professor—you said it had to be three movements, three themes. I’ve done this.”

“Sherlock, you have all the talent in the world, but if you don’t reign it in and use it with wisdom, you won’t get very far,” the Professor says, sighing. “I’m afraid I don’t see three distinct movements here. I see a mess of the same emotion tangling in different ways, different knots. But in the end, all knots are the same.”

Sherlock scowls, feeling the first tendrils of panic rise in him. He needs this grade—he needs this professor on his side. He sucks in a breath, then smiles a small, pitiful smile. “Professor,” he says, leaning in earnestly, fumbling with the sleeves of his black cashmere jumper like a little ingénue, “is there any chance—any at all, I mean—for, well, partial credit? I know you called me in here for something—you aren’t just going to fail me, and I wrote this with all my heart in it—you said yourself there’s emotion, and—and—” he breaks off, looking down and swallows. He looks back up, quirking his mouth back into the same artless, pitiful smile. “Well, perhaps I could redo this assignment? I’m sure I could revise it so it meets the requirements…”

Professor Bodeen stares at him for a full fifteen seconds, during which Sherlock’s sure he’s trying to parse this young, gifted student with the silent, standoffish, arrogant prick that haunts the back of his classes.

“I’m sure you could revise it,” Professor Bodeen finally says. “In fact, I’m certain your revision would be better and more original than the compositions of the other bright young things in your class.”

He pauses and looks out the window. Sherlock’s not sure if it’s for effect (Mycroft does that all the time, the annoying arsehole) or if he’s really thinking about something. He uses the time to look around Professor Bodeen’s office. It’s spacious, with soft, north light. Shelves line the walls, enclosing them within files and books. Sheaves of music spill from the shelves onto the carpet. It’s difficult to navigate through it all. Several small cacti and a decorative vase sit on the windowsill. The bin is filled with sweet wrappers and orange peels. It smells sweet.

Suddenly the professor’s mouth slackens, his hands coming to rest on his knees lazily (Sherlock deduces he’s never spent much time performing, and strictly lives in books and old music). “Here’s what I’m going to do,” he says, “I’m giving you top credit for this work you’ve turned in just now—but this is your warning, understand? Continue to use your imagination, but remember to use it wisely. Don’t run away with it, Sherlock.”

Sherlock sits back. _Well._

“Now, here’s what _you’re_ going to do, my boy,” the professor continues, fixing him with a sharp blue stare. “You’re going to write something happy—something very short and robustly happy, three minutes at most. That’s all I need. Turn it in whenever you want, but before term ends, please, otherwise it’ll be no fun on anyone’s end.”

Sherlock stands up and gathers his bag. “Thank you, professor,” he simpers, “I’ll get the short piece to you in no time.” He goes to the door. As he opens it, the professor’s voice halts him.

“Sherlock, you are very talented, there is no dispute. But you either need to make your act more believable, or relax. Let your music speak for itself. I could see through your act the moment you put on that little smile.”

Sherlock turns around. Professor Bodeen’s wearing his own little smile, a complacent one. He glares and makes sure to close the door loudly.

 

 _Relax,_ Sherlock thinks bitterly. It’s all anyone’s told him to do here. _Just relax, Mr Holmes, I’m sure the administration will put your request through straight away. Just relax, Sherlock, it doesn’t matter what you get on this paper, you’ve done so well on all the rest! Just relax, Holmes, I’m sure you can go running back to your mummy after we’re done with you!_

He’s in the shower, watching beads of water trickle past the pearly scars on his inner arms. The reason people don’t understand is because they see the selfish arsehole in designer clothing that overachieves and bites heads off. They don’t realize he’s on academic probation in his first ever semester because Cambridge doesn’t trust him due to his past. They don’t realize the restrictions the administration have put on him. He has to visit the counseling center weekly, has to maintain top marks— _or else._

He grins despite it all. The academic dean was very vague. He has a feeling the threat isn’t real, but is there only so they can present it to whoever might need presenting to if it comes to presenting.

And he’d rather have people see the arrogant prick than the pathetic junkie, anyway.

“What is your sexual orientation?”his shrink, Heather, had asked in their first session.

He’d fixed her with a hard stare and bit out, “Straight. I’m not a _fairy_ ,” and Heather had eaten it right up and written “repressed homosexuality” in her notebook. She’ll believe he’s having a breakthrough when he decides to come out to her. That’s one up his sleeve.

He leans his head back into the warm stream of water. Beauty and attraction are a construct based on childhood impressions, influences, and role models. What does it mean then, that he’s only attracted to men? Or is sexual orientation decided at birth, lurking until one finds it? He makes a mental note to look it up next time he’s in the library.

Regardless, the warm water is soothing and there’s no one else in the other showers. His cock is half hard after his thorough ablutions. He takes it in hand, stroking himself to full hardness. He tries not to think of anything other than the physical sensations beginning to flood his body. His fingers tug and pull at his foreskin, slide back to his balls. He leans against the wall, breaths coming faster now. He’s starting to feel good.

Unbidden, a face swims up in his mind. Its hazel eyes twinkling, pupils just tiny pinpricks, its pretty pink mouth uttering the words, “Suck me, Holmes,” and suddenly Sherlock is on his knees in the shower, a cock thrusting down his throat as Victor moans above him.

He reaches for his cock, but Victor slaps his hand aside. “Don’t touch yourself,” he growls, “You’re my fucktoy, Holmes. You don’t get to get off.”

_He obeys, and the thing is, he enjoys it to some extent. The cock fucking his face, saliva and pre-come sliding down his chin, the utter mess of it all. He shouldn’t like it—this isn’t a relationship, no matter how much he wants it to be—this is a business transaction. He grabs onto Victor’s thighs instead, to steady himself against the increasingly hard thrusts._

_“Mmm, yeah, fuck, Holmes, your mouth is so pretty,” Victor says._

_Sherlock drops his eyes. He shouldn't like this. Shame floods through him like arousal._

_“Look at me when I fuck your face, whore,” Victor says, yanking his hair. And against his will, Sherlock feels his balls tightening, the pressure in his stomach building, and he knows he’s going to come soon, and won’t that be a show for Victor?_

_He looks up, making eye contact with Victor. The hazel eyes are glittering and hard. He can’t keep it in—he can’t, not with Victor looking at him like he owns him. Victor’s cock thrusts—_ so hard _—_ so sweet _—_ so painful _—down his throat and he clenches his eyes shut, and he comes with his trousers still on._

_“Fuck, you’re such a cock slut, Holmes,” Victor crows, laughing. Rough arms throw him onto the floor, and his trousers are yanked down. “No pants, Holmes?” Victor says. “Well, we certainly know what you’re after, don’t we? Fucking flirt.”_

_And his eyes are clenched shut against the inevitable pain. Victor’s at least spit on his hole, slicked his cock with saliva. And he feels the cock pushing at him, and it breaches him_ —

—and it doesn’t hurt at all.

“Victor—Victor—”

Victor is all the way inside him. Sherlock can feel every inch of him—filling him, completing him—and it feels like heaven.

“God—move,” he gasps, pushing back down on his cock.

“Jesus, you’re tight,” comes the strained reply. “Fuck—just—just—give me a second or I’m going to come.”

Sherlock moans but holds still. They pant together, Victor’s hot breath caressing his back.

Then Victor groans and pulls out a little, pushes back in.

“Yes,” Sherlock moans, “don’t stop.”

His thrusts get longer, slick and hard inside him. His own cock is impossibly getting harder. His body buzzes, feels so light. He can feel the press of his fingers against the wall, his toes clenching and unclenching against the tingling. God, it’s good.

Victor is peppering kisses all over his back, teeth scraping gently. One of his hands play with Sherlock’s nipples, and Sherlock gives a full body shiver, slides down knees weak, and the new angle—

“Ah fuck!” he whimpers. “Please, god, please, harder—”

And Victor goes harder, his thrusts long and hard and deep and fast, his thick cock hitting his prostate every time with startling accuracy. Sherlock’s practically sobbing—it’s never been this good, the pleasure unfurling inside him with every thrust like it was there all along—like he always had this inside him, was always capable of feeling this good—and Victor bites his neck, a claiming bite, hard and painful, his careful, deep thrusts a constant throb. He fucks him like his cock belongs in Sherlock, like Sherlock belongs to him.

“What do you need?” Victor whispers, as he moans long and loud.

“You,” he whimpers, shutting his eyes, “you.”

“You have me,” Victor says, thrusting deeper, taking Sherlock’s cock in his hand. He rubs his swollen glans. “Fuck my hand.”

Sherlock fucks it, his entire body singing. He’s so close, he’s so close and he just came. This is a fucking miracle. He turns his head around, searching for a kiss.

He finds calm, dark blue eyes and bright blond hair. The man winks at him, eyes sparkling as he fucks him, capturing his lips in a blazing kiss. Sherlock drowns in it, his heart beating so fast, his knees weak. His body is drooping against the wall—so why does he feel so alive—what’s happening to him—he doesn’t even need air. All he needs is this man and his cock and his mouth and his fingers; he doesn’t even need air—

he hears someone whining distantly

“Sherlock,” the man whispers, “it’s alright. Come for me.”

he comes

stars bursting in front of his eyes

blacking out

_“Fucking slut,” Victor snarls, standing. “I told you not to come.”_

_“But you did too—so it’s ok, it’s ok,” Sherlock gasps out, still on the floor. His arse is red and sore. He doesn’t think he can get up, so he doesn’t try._

_“Fucking slut,” is all Victor says, but it’s alright, it’s alright because after he does his fly, Victor throws down a little baggie full of snow._

 

*

 

Water is pouring over him like errant rain. His come is sliding down the shower wall. Shame floods him. He scrubs himself all over again and makes sure the wall is clean. He dries himself off and pads back to his room.

His mind is oddly blank. He dresses (long sleeved silk shirt, trousers, cashmere jumper). He works. Chemistry is simple, intuitive.

Like this, he is little more than an automaton. A machine.

 

If only he _could_ relax.

 

He’s in the library helping little Molly Hooper with her biology homework when he hears the voice.

“Sherlock? Sherlock Holmes?” it says.

Blue eyes, blond hair, warm smile.

“I…”

“I haven’t seen you around!” the man says. “I thought I’d see you all the time now, because they’ve moved my shifts so I’m opening everyday.”

Opening…?

“Oh! Er… John Watson,” the man says. “We… we met at the coffee shop.” He jerks his head over his shoulder where the coffee shop is.

John Watson. _It’s alright. Come for me._

God, no wonder he’d felt a bit of apprehension when Molly had wanted to sit in the atrium.

_It’s alright. Come for me._

“Oh. Yes, of course,” Sherlock says mechanically. Beside him, Molly is staring between them with wide eyes. John is still standing next to them, apron fastened jauntily, nametag an explosion of doodles. He’s wearing a small, hopeful smile. _Go away, go away, go away,_ Sherlock thinks, gripping the table harshly.

_It’s alright. Come for me._

 

 


	3. Look At The Turn-Ups On His Jeans!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Sorry it took so long for me to update. I had a busy week at school. 
> 
> Thank you for clicking on this fic, staying with this fic and for all your wonderful feedback.
> 
> If anyone can recommend a less ridiculous name for the coffee shop, please let me know in the comments!

_He’s in the library helping little Molly Hooper with her biology homework when he hears the voice._

_“Sherlock? Sherlock Holmes?” it says._

_Blue eyes, blond hair, warm smile._

_“I…”_

_“I haven’t seen you around!” the man says. “I thought I’d see you all the time now, because they’ve moved my shifts so I’m opening every day.”_

_Opening…?_

_“Oh! Er… John Watson,” the man says. “We… we met at the coffee shop.” He jerks his head over his shoulder where the coffee shop is._

_John Watson._ It’s alright. Come for me.

_God, no wonder he’d felt a bit of apprehension when Molly had wanted to sit in the atrium._

It’s alright. Come for me.

 _“Oh. Yes, of course,” Sherlock says mechanically. Beside him, Molly is staring between them with wide eyes. John is still standing next to them, apron fastened jauntily, nametag an explosion of doodles. He’s wearing a small, hopeful smile_. Go away, go away, go away, _Sherlock thinks, gripping the table harshly._

It’s alright. Come for me.

Oh.

John.

John Watson.

Fuck.

“No, I—I remember you,” he blurts, cutting into the heavy silence with the grace of a chainsaw. “Coffee.”

There’s another pause in which all three of them admire Sherlock’s graceful one word outburst. Then John expels a huge breath. “Oh thank god!” he says. He smiles a little. “I was worried the giant cup of coffee didn’t make that big of an impression!”

“No, it did. It, ah, was the best coffee I’ve had in a while.”

“I’m glad,” John says, smiling down at Sherlock. “So, why did you stop coming to get coffee? I swear I saw you pass by in the mornings.”

 _Because I deleted you and dismissed you from my mind palace, except for when I had unsatisfactory wanking sessions, and I would have never remembered you if you hadn’t reintroduced yourself,_ seems like a bad answer. “Er… I just, didn’t feel like coffee,” he says lamely. “I—I go on these dry spells sometimes. You know, sometimes I just want… tea.”

_Shut up, Sherlock, shut up._

“We have tea,” John says, smirking. His eyes glint, as though saying, _As I’m sure you knew._ “Stop by no matter what you want, I’m sure I could whip something up.”

“Do you cook?” Molly pipes up, and the boys both jump.

“Oh! Well, a little. If it’s breakfast food, I can probably fix you up proper. Otherwise…” John chuckles.

“Sherlock can cook,” Molly says, batting her lashes at John and twisting a finger around a piece of her hair coyly. “He’s really good!”

What. The. Hell.

Is she… _flirting_ with him while extoling Sherlock’s good virtues? Molly shoots a look at Sherlock, which reads, _I’m sorry, but he’s so attractive._

Well, two can play at that game. He leans towards John, smiling so his dimples show at precisely the right angle. “Molly is an _excellent_ cook,” he purrs, locking his eyes on John. “Just last Wednesday, she made the most mouth watering grilled cheese sandwiches. The cheese was the color of your hair… golden brown, like a piece of gold in the sand—”

Molly cuts him off at just the right moment. “Well, see, what you don’t know about Sherlock is he’s actually really good at art. He can draw anything, anything at all—”

“Molly is pretty. See—exhibit A—”

“Hey!”

“What, you’re not going to say I’m pretty, too?” Sherlock shoots back.

“I think we both know who the prettiest one is here is,” Molly dares him.

“Yes, we do,” Sherlock throws back.

John is looking between them. Sherlock’s pretty sure his face is as red as Molly’s, which is saying something, because Molly has the talent to flush like a fire hydrant.

“Er… was any of that true?” John asks. “The grilled cheese thing and the art…”

“No—”

“Yes,” Molly cuts in earnestly. “Everything about Sherlock, that is. And he’s the one who can make grilled cheese sandwiches. He was just projecting his finer traits onto me. He does that.”

“And I’m, er, just a liar,” Sherlock says, smiling up at John. The heat trickles up his spine, through the back of his neck, into his cheeks.

“That’s good to know,” John says, “just don’t make me tell you which one of you is prettier.”

Molly giggles.

“I don’t think I’ve met you,” John extends his hand to Molly politely like the perfect gentleman he is. Sherlock and Molly sigh in tandem, Sherlock slightly more subtly. “I’m John Watson. I work over there at Espresso Yourself.”

“It’s such a pleasure to meet you. I’m Molly Hooper,” Molly gushes, biting her lip bashfully as they shake hands. “Erm, what are you studying?”

“Medicine, you?”

“Oh my god, same!” Molly exclaims. Sherlock rolls his eyes. “Well, I want to go into psychiatry or pathology—who knows, I’m only a first year. What’re you specializing in?”

“Emergency medicine—I want to cut people open, do surgeries, that sort of thing.” John smiles that smile—the one Sherlock’s suddenly remembering as the Let Me Cut Into You With My Charm Sharpened Serrated Knife smile. To see it directed at Molly sends little tendrils of… _something_ … through him. The last time he’d seen it, John was bonding with him over good coffee….

“Gosh, that’s gory—well, I can’t talk, I want to cut up dead people, I think that’s much more gruesome, don’t you?” Molly blusters. Then she pulls one hand up to her mouth. “Oh god, I’m so sorry, I—“

But John cuts her off with that warm chuckle. “No—no, I get what you mean. It takes a special person not to be creeped out by a dead person. I don’t mind them myself.”

This time Molly’s not the only one who blushes.

“So, who do you recommend for Basic Anatomy?” Molly asks, leaning in. John takes a seat at their table just like that. Sherlock drinks in the sight of him, John Watson, sitting at his table. The callous on his left thumb looks familiar--did he notice that last time? And the knit oatmeal jumper he's wearing--what was he wearing last time? It suits him….

“Erm, well, everyone _says_ Phillips is the best, but I took him for another class and I actually found him a bit full of himself. Like he tells all these jokes, but they’re not funny at all. I spent most classes just trying to concentrate on the material rather than repeating _shut up shut up shut up wanker_ in my head. But yeah, I took Basic Anatomy with Greer, and she was amazing. She’s not worried about whether you have fun or not. She’s just focused on teaching you the material. I like that more, I guess. She’s straightforward. So I guess it depends on what teaching style you prefer.”

Molly blushes again. “I think I’ll go with Greer, then. You know, some of the more sociable professors want to _talk_ to you, and I get awkward, and they get… sort of judgmental, a bit.”

“True. That’s definitely true. Hey, just out of curiosity, are you two together?”

Sherlock chokes gracefully on his spit. “What?”

“Oh!” Molly says. “No, we’re not together. I wish, though. Isn’t he gorgeous?” She pats Sherlock’s cheek.

“Yeah, he is,” John says, smiling a bit. “So, you have a girlfriend?”

“Me?” Sherlock says dumbly. He’s been happy enough listening to John and Molly talk (and staring at John), and now he’s being drawn back into the conversation like a bear might be pulled from hibernation. Grumpily. “Oh—I—girlfriend? Erm… not really my area.”

“Oh. So you have a boyfriend, then?”

Sherlock blushes furiously. John’s gazing at him with those blue eyes that make their eye contact seem meaningful and like their connection goes on forever. “No,” he whispers into that blue gaze.

A duck quacks loudly.

“What was _that_?” Sherlock says, tearing his eyes from John’s. The quack continues. It’s so loud that it carries over the din of people passing through the echoing atrium, and several students at the other tables begin looking round too.

“Oh—that’s me, I’m buzzing,” John says, grinning. He pulls out his mobile. “ _Oh_ god, it’s my girlfriend.”

“ _Girlfriend?”_ two voices say simultaneously.

“Er—yeah, she’s—she’s just texting me. I guess I’ve got to go to a thing…”

“Oh—well, don’t let us keep you,” Molly says. She glances at Sherlock, who has pulled a much-studied mask over his face. “But… what’s this thing you’re going to? I’m sort of struggling to get into student life here….”

John grimaces and shakes his head. “She’s sort of crazy, this one. Her name’s Irene Adler, heard of her?”

Molly and Sherlock shake their heads, transfixed.

John snorts a little. “Actually I’m surprised you _haven’t_ heard of her,” he says. “She has _quite_ the reputation. I’m supposed to be going to this performance art thing of hers, she’s a gender studies and dance student, so she does these really sexy routines that everyone likes to go to…” he trails off, grimacing.

“ _Really?_ ” Molly says. “That actually sounds like quite a lot of fun—”

John and Sherlock both whip their heads around to stare.

“Hey! I can like sexy things too,” Molly says, folding her arms. “Just because I wear fuzzy cat jumpers and… well. But I don’t want to be… but, erm, listen, can we go to the performance?”

For a moment, John looks rather shocked. “Fun— _fun?”_ he chokes. “Watching your girlfriend get naked around the entire male population of Cambridge is _not fun._ But… yeah, you can come.” He bites his lip, glancing at Sherlock. “Actually… yeah, having you there would be… yeah, it would be good. Irene and I… well, it’s hard to say.”

Sherlock bites his lip. Actually, he _has_ heard of Irene Adler. Anyone who knows how to use their ears knows who Irene Adler is. He has a feeling he knows exactly what John was going to say.

“Wait here, I’ll just get you a flyer,” John says.

He strides off towards a bulletin board in the wide entrance hallway.

Sherlock turns ever so slowly towards Molly. He feels like he’s about to be guillotined. He already knows what exaggerated expression Molly’ll be twisting her dainty face into.

But it’s not exaggerated. There’s very little eyebrow action going on, very little of the artistically dropped mouth. Looking at her is like looking at a candid photo. Nothing is rehearsed about Molly in the second he faces her. In fact, she’s looking at him like she’s never seen him before.

The thing is, she hasn’t, not like this.

“Sherlock!” she hisses. “Why didn’t you tell me about him?”

“Well,” he says stiffly. “I deleted him.”

“ _What?_ ”

Sherlock ignores her in favor of watching John remove a flyer from the bulletin board.

“Sherlock!”

“Oh, John’s coming back,” Sherlock says blithely. “Can’t talk now.”

She makes a face like she’s about to throttle him.

“Alright,” John says, placing the flyer on the table, “don’t think anyone’s going to miss this so you can keep it. The event’s at 7 at the dance building, there’ll be signs telling you where to go.”

His phone quacks again. “God, there she goes again…”

“So you’re meeting her backstage?” Molly asks.

“Yeah,” John grimaces. “She’s always keyed up before a performance. She doesn’t like to think so, but she always gets a bit more… I dunno… exaggeratedly sexy. It’s a bit overwhelming.”

“But that’s so romantic that you’re going to see her before the performance!” Molly sighs violently. “I can see why she keeps you around.”

“Eurgh,” John says, checking his phone again. “Well, duty calls. I’ve got to run. I’ll see you there! Sherlock, don’t stay away, Molly, stop by the coffee shop anytime, I can do you guys a fry up—special customers!”

Sherlock and Molly watch him hurry away.

Molly turns away first. “You fancy him.”

It looks like she’s back to stating the obvious, so Sherlock keeps his eyes trained on the vision that is John’s arse walking away.

“Sherlock!” Molly says. “You fancy him!”

Sherlock sighs. “I gather that was rather more obvious than I wanted it to be.”

“Obvious? God, it was easier to see than Kim Kardashian’s nip slip in that hideous dress!”

“Thanks, Molly.”

“Oh, Sherloooock,” Molly coos, “don’t be like that. I approve, you know. And—you’re gay—I mean, I didn’t know that, of course, but now that I know, I’ll stop hitting on you. Doesn’t that make you feel better?”

Sherlock grunts. He’s glad Molly’s taken in stride the fact he’s gay, but truth be told, he’ll miss the extra attention she gives him.

"Er—you  _are_ gay right? Or bisexual or something?"

“I’m gay,” he clarifies.

“Okay,” Molly says. Bless her. Bless little Molly Hooper who hangs out with him and smiles at him like there's nothing wrong in her world. “But what did you mean, you deleted him?” Oh dear. What’s the opposite of bless her?

Sherlock fidgets a bit with his fingers. Molly’s learned a lot about him today. Something sits uneasily in him.

“You flirted with him,” he accuses instead.

Molly smiles coyly. “Well, he’s yummy. I couldn’t help myself.”

“He’s mine.”

“Don’t you care that I approve?” Molly says, beaming as though her opinion is the only thing that matters.

He sniffs, aloof again. “Not really.”

“Fine, he’s yours then. I guess you did see him first.”

“That’s a stupid rule.”

“Are you complaining?”

Sherlock huffs. “No. Are you really going to that event?”

“Yeah! It sounds like a lot of fun. Irene sounds really interesting.”

“Seriously? You’re going?”

“Well, how else am I going to scope out his girlfriend? They don’t seem too happy together.”

“Well, _you_ can go then. Scope out his _girl_ friend.”

Molly eyes him shrewdly. “You know, you don’t know that he’s totally straight.”

He slouches down low. “Well, I have _deduced_ that he is straight.”

“No, you haven’t,” Molly says sweetly. “You’ve been pining for god knows how long. I bet you only just now decided he’s straight. And you know what? I don’t think he is. Look at the turn-ups on his jeans!”

“ _Look at the turn-ups on his jeans?_ ” Sherlock says incredulously. “I have no words. That is so stupid.”

“It’s how you do your deductions though, isn’t it?”

“What? No! That’s ridiculous. My deductions are based on science.”

“If you say so,” Molly says, grinning. “But Sherlock. He was flirting with you. Trust me.”

“No, he wasn’t. He’s just nice.”

“No, I know about these things—”

“You would,” Sherlock mutters.

“—and when people are unhappy in relationships, they don’t flirt with strangers, they get nasty with strangers. And what was all that about you being gorgeous and promising you a fry up?”

“He promised you a fry up, too.”

"Well, crush or no crush, I'm going. It sounds fun."

"No, it doesn't."

"Sherlock, you should go. I think John really, really likes you, and I'm kind of scared to go by myself. Please, please, please come with me?" Molly's eyes are wide and naive, and it's not even an act.

And that voice again. The one that keeps him right. _Keep your head down, Sherlock._

"No," he mutters. "I'm not going."

“Come on, Sherlock,” Molly blushes like the lovely thing she is, “you’re so tall and dark and handsome. Everyone’s looking at you. Why on earth do you think John won’t like you?”

He fidgets with his sleeves and frowns into Molly’s bright eyes.

 

As he and Molly make their way to the dance studios, he dips into his mind palace. There’s a new, deep blue room rooted deep in the foundation of the palace, contrasting starkly with the rest of the uniform white marble. He takes a small step inside and it all surges up like a forgotten tsunami.

John Watson.

Bearer of eyes the rarest shade of the subtlest blue, and of hair the color of gold.

Bearer of a smile that carries the warmth of a sunny day.

Maker of Good Coffee.

Straight?

The object of his… more desirable… sexual fantasies?

The outline of the room is hazy. His head is swimming with blue.  

 

 


	4. Bilocation, Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drugs.
> 
> Thank you for reading. :)

After the performance he wants drugs.

Every step he takes makes him feel like he’s going backwards. It’s the odd sensation that as he moves forwards, he moves away from himself. As he moves, he leaves himself behind.

It’s unusually cold tonight, clear skied and crisp. He’s got on his usual silk shirt, cashmere cardigan, tapered slacks. Molly’s got on a nice new dress, though. It’s powder blue with bows on it. She’s wearing white tights underneath. Sherlock smirks, folding his coat collar up. She looks like the Easter bunny.

The October breeze flies past them as they cross the grounds. It seems like most of the other students walking in the half-light are heading the same direction as them. They drift along in the crowd. Sherlock imagines that to someone at the top of the astronomy tower—the highest building on campus—the students form trickling streams.

He snaps the rubber band he wears around his wrist as quietly as possible—bruises—a supposed coping mechanism—but it reminds him of his tourniquet, or before, a scrap of fabric held in his teeth. He pulls it tight around his wrist, wishing he were in private so he can roll it to his upper arm and watch his veins begin to bulge. To Molly, it’ll look as if he’s walking with one wrist in his hand—perfectly normal, and no one looks. The tingling, throbbing sensation is his alone.

Most of the students trickling away from campus are older—they’ve got this air of sophistication about them, smoking cigarettes and dressed like dangerous artwork. Molly looks like a good little girl next to them. Then again, she usually does, no matter whom she’s standing next to.

They’re going to the after party, or Molly is, at least.

_“Sherlock! Molly!”_

_“John!”_

_“Great job, Molly! I’m so glad you two came. Isn’t she great? Irene wanted to invite you two to the after party. She wants to meet you guys.”_

_“She does? Oh my god, yes, yes, yes, I would love to meet her—actually meet her! What’s she like?”_

_“She’s really clever. She knows a lot about what people want.”_

_“Yeah, she read me so well up there—I mean—that’s pretty embarrassing, but at least Sherlock prepared me for it, what with his deductions and the way he goes on about things.”_

_“Yeah? What did you think of her deductions, Sherlock?”_

He drifts on after them. It would be so easy to drop behind. The nebulous shapes of gothic buildings that towered around them shrink away as they retreat from campus.

Garrett Hall is remote, on a small hill surrounded by bare, grasping trees. Night is falling more heavily under these trees, and low, potent wind kicks fallen leaves along the stone path. It’s cold and Sherlock has his new coat, but he can’t help but think about when the cold bled from night to day and he sat trembling through it amongst litter.

The cold rattles through his body. He can feel ghost tremors in his hands. Cocaine is as necessary as breathing. He _needs_ it.

_Irene slinking out with her riding crop. Nakednakednaked. He needs it._

Casmi _r by Chopard. Sharp fruity spicy. Too strong, too feminine. Mummy wore it too._

_Enveloped in her dull, angry gaze._

_Irene grinning and whipping Molly as she kneels at her feet._

_VictorVictorVictor._

_He needs it._

The best way of waiting out the cold when the shops won’t let him in is getting high. He can stare at his goose bumps for hours. He can stare at the rain falling from the sky for hours. He can watch his breath disappearing into the air. He can disappear with it.

Cocaine is being and disappearing at the same time.

Breathing. Breathing is torture. So boring. Thinking is a different kind of torture. He can feel his heart throbbing with each beat. He needs something—anything—he can feel the shaking setting in.

His wallet presses into his leg helpfully. He remembers that he has exactly twenty-five pounds in his wallet, which would buy him half a gram, more if he adds a blowjob or a fuck. Half a gram is enough, just enough right now for a quick fix, just enough to stop this infernal shaking, make the cold right. His phone is in his other pocket, and he still has Jared, Phillip, and Lisa programmed in it. Jared lives on the street, is tough and ruthless—overprices in more than one way. Lisa is a mother of three—nice enough but too decent to accept services. Phillip is easy to trick—he’d get more than half a gram from him. Phillip.

_Everything Irene does to Molly, Sherlock feels deep in his body. Victor hitting him as he drives his cock into him. Spit flying into his face, his hair being pulled. He watches Irene in a trance as his skin gets pinker and pinker and bruised and broken._

_Floating on VictorVictorVictor and waves and waves of blank white blinding sadness._

_So beautiful. Everything winks around him forever, crystalline, without horizons._

_If he had to choose between feeling this way and feeling—he’d choose this always._

His feet are plodding along obligingly. They’ve started climbing the hill. The air has turned black, has caught up with whatever shit is going on under those trees, and he looks up into the dark. Molly and John are shadows, chatting in bright voices.

No, stupid, _stupid_ , this is a party. Irene Adler’s party. There’s got be some sort of drug here he can use or steal without anyone noticing. He won’t need money this time. Good.

He thinks of begging and loving and belonging.

Even pot—even pot.

He doesn’t have needles, hadn’t planned for this.

It’ll be snorting, smoking, and maybe pills, depending on what they’ll have. He won’t say no to oxycodone, morphine, vicodin, heroin, molly, Valium, speed, methadone, fentanyl, codeine, cough medicine.

He just has to have it.

He was brilliant with cocaine.

Here are the reasons not to be brilliant:

 

_fingers trembling and he touches the scars on his forearms, his requested long sleeves pushed up, the raised scars casting beautiful shadows like icicles caught in light as he tells Dr Albersheim_

_tells Dr Albersheim he’s not he’s not an addict, not depressed, not borderline, not dissociative as Mycroft frowns, always frowning, Mycroft is_

_there’s really nothing_

_nothing wrong…._

 

They’re let in by someone who gives a war cry and hugs John when he sees him. Sherlock walks in like he’s having a breakdown. He walks in like he’s coming home.

Hazy electronic music unfurls slowly through the room. He wants a cigarette. It would be handy. His blood itches, feels like dull razors squeezing through him. He feels dangerous and lazy. He wants to sleep and run.

People are sat around drunk and hazy like sardines waiting to be shot.

He wanders through like Dante, through the after party, which may as well be called an aftermath. People are already half-wasted. He’s resolved to search the loo if he doesn’t find anything in five minutes when there, a tight circle of solid backed chairs—armchairs, lazy boys, kitchen chairs, etc.—around a low coffee table.

There. White. Snow. Powder. Blow. Sugar. Crack. Nose candy.

He joins the group with ease.

He can breathe easy just staring at it.

And he is. He is going to do it.

One line.

 

 

Being high is like falling off a cliff. The clarity sharping through his veins like adrenaline—he always knows what it’s going to be like, but he always feels exhilarated—relieved—because he’s not waiting around anymore. Because life is a plateau, and only stupid people trundle around not realizing they’ll fall one day.

And he can see so clearly. And the music is a fraction louder, textured, but he’s sinking below, wafting away, the music turning into a beautiful aria twisting and winking somewhere above the surface, beautiful and half-forgotten. He can see the crisp, white, cold snow stretching ceaselessly into the distance over the rough fabric of the chair he’s sitting on, can feel the cold air welcoming him back over the hot, damp air in the room, can smell the fresh sea breeze over the smell of sweat and alcohol and grass.

He can see his legs disappearing into the snow. There are no surrounding footprints as though he landed there, flew, fell. He falls backwards and makes a snow angel.

He lies on his angel, the snow hugging him sturdily.

He huddles into the snow. It insulates him perfectly.

 _Et in Arcadia ego,_ he thinks. In the beginning it was beautiful.

He does another line.

So white and pure.

Above him the sky is the gentlest grey. How many white days has it seen?

Blinking into the rolling grey, which sheaths him from the rest of the—

—no. No, there is nothing else.

 

There is absolute silence. There is good air. There is nothing he needs to fear.

 

He’ll stay here for a while.

 

 


	5. Bilocation, Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: self harm and drugs

Eagle spread, staring up into the ether. He trails a finger through the snow, drawing a line. It’s precise, exactly the sort of thing he expects, the way he makes incisions with his mind. This is all just surgery.

He becomes aware of an elegy drifting high among the clouds. He can barely hear it down here. It sighs like the wind. He supposes, vaguely, that it’s an elegy sung for him. _Elegy for Sherlock._ His funeral. Burrowing deeper into the waiting snow, he can escape it. He can touch his finger to it the way he can touch the snow, feel it packed up, molded to his form.

There. Silence. A hole in the patchwork.

He’s cradled in it. This is where he lives, the hole in the bottom of the world. The opening of a drainpipe.

The wind picks up, lifting snow from the ground. It never snows here though there is always plenteous snow on the ground. It whips into his face, whispering, singing. They are singing to him…

_Sherlock, Sherlock, Sherlock…_

That song again. Time to go, then. The snow under him gives way and he’s falling again. Falling backwards through the cold snow

into his chair and he deduces in a flash of genius that he’s sitting with a group of third years. There are three men—Malcolm, Louis, and Thomas. Malcolm is studying politics, Louis and Thomas medicine. Louis is going into neuroscience and Thomas is in the psychology program. They get on because of old ties—they were at Harrow together, all on the equestrian team, in the dressage unit. But Malcolm is drifting away because of his different specialty—medicine and politics don’t mix; one heals and one disciplines. Thomas and Louis are having nights out at the bar without telling Malcolm. Do they not want Malcolm to be upset, or does this show a darker side to Malcolm?

There are four women. Three of them are Malcolm, Louis, and Thomas’s dates. The fourth, Taylor, is tagging along with Emmy, Thomas’s girlfriend. Thomas and Emmy have been together… two years, and living together, judging by the way the cloud of orange scented Herbal Essence shampoo hovers over both of them—pretty stable seeing as Thomas doesn’t know Emmy is bisexual. Why would she not tell him—ah, his father is homophobic, borderline abusive and almost certainly neglectful and Thomas still wants his approval, though he is not homophobic himself. Emmy is a film and philosophy student, perhaps knows Irene from similar artistic endeavors, which is why they’re all here. Taylor is interesting though… writes porn for a fee, dresses like a ninety-year-old, is a studio art major on a scholarship, doesn’t want to be here—needs to maintain her grades to keep her scholarship; she’s worrying her lower lip so she’s got a test tomorrow, art history; if she leaves Cambridge, she’ll have to go back to taking care of her sick mother, who has…Guillain-Barre—very rare, not many people give her the sympathy she’d get if her mother had cancer or ALS, so she’s all alone—

“You all right?”

“Oh, yeah, yeah,” Sherlock winks. Thomas has got nice white-blond hair, but he wears it idiotically grown out like… _oh_ Kurt Cobain. Childhood idol, still plays the guitar every now and then. “You got any more of that stuff?” he gestures lazily at the sparse white powder.

“No, man, who do you think we are?” Malcolm snickers. “This isn’t our stuff.”

“Sorry,” Sherlock says, “just though you were into that stuff.”

“Excuse me?”

“Did you know… your friends are meeting up without you? That they don’t care for your self righteous… judgmental… political… drivel?” Sherlock says hazily. His tolerance has gone down then, he notes. Or it’s the high lasting longer because he snorted the coke instead of injecting it like he usually does. Did.

“ _What?_ ” the wanker, Malcolm says. Oh, he’ll believe it, too—he’s got no integrity of thought. Sherlock laughs, slouching in his chair. It’s so easy to do this, so easy to make people hate each other.

“No, Malc, it’s not true, mad sod doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Thomas says quickly. “Look at his eyes, see? He’s high out of his mind.”

Malcolm huffs, turning back to his date, Laura, who is… boring. Plastic blonde and skinny, naturally beautiful, got into Cambridge because daddy donated, studying Religion, obviously one of those rich conservatives; on a second thought, perfect for Malcolm—

“Don’t be patronizing,” Malcolm hisses, “his pupils are huge!”

Trust him to not know that cocaine causes the pupil to dilate. Sherlock snorts. “Your _friends_ ,” he sneers, “don’t want to hang out with you; your _friends_ are sick of your political bullshit when they have _real_ problems to deal with. _He_ has a little problem with suicidal ideation, _she_ is hiding her sexual orientation, and _she_ has no time for any of you; she’s the only one here who knows how important it is to be here.”

“What are you doing, mate?” Thomas asks, a little red in the face.

“Just helping Malc see the light,” Sherlock whistles through his teeth, folding his hands behind his head. He grins rakishly at him.

“Well, you can stop. Actually, you can go. Don’t remember you being invited.”

Sherlock sits back, making himself comfortable. “Yeah, alright. Your girlfriend’s bisexual, by the way.”

“She’s not. She’d have told me.”

“Would she have?”

“You nutter!” Thomas says, shaking his head. Emmy bites her lip. Sherlock scowls. Not the reaction he was hoping for.

“Fuck you!” he says, spreading his legs obnoxiously. “Fags like you never see what’s right in front of them.”

“Fuck you!” Thomas hisses back.

“Oh, that’s very original,” Sherlock snorts, pretending to yawn.

“Fuck you! I am not gay! Who do you think—”

“And you wonder why she doesn’t want to tell you? Idiot.”

Thomas turns, faux Kurt Cobain hair swinging wildly, to his girlfriend, who has drawn into her chair, frozen. “Emmy,” he growls, “ _what are you?_ ”

“I—no—Thomas—” she starts, and Sherlock grins, because that’s all he needs. And…right on cue, Thomas stands up.

“I don’t believe this. Two years— _two years_ and you didn’t tell me!”

“Don’t worry, Emmy,” Sherlock pokes his head around Thomas’s legs. “If daddy had paid more attention to him, he wouldn’t feel the need to please him by taking on—”

“Alright. You _shut up._ ”

“Bad disciple,” Sherlock giggles. “Kurt wasn’t homophobi—”

_Thwack!_

A girl screams. Sherlock laughs, his face throbbing. The other man’s touch is the first he’s felt in a while, and it feels dangerously good. “You’re punching a guy who’s just sitting down? Didn’t Kurt believe in nonviolence?”

“You started this. What do you want?”

“A show,” Sherlock says smarmily. Thomas’s face gets even redder. “Show me what you’ve got, or you’re gay.” He stands up and spreads his arms out. “Come on, poser.”

Thomas takes the bait, swings his arms out. He’s more than a little bulky, lifts weights, probably three times a week, lands two on Sherlock before he darts aside, but it’s so _funny_ , he hasn’t had a good fight in too long. “You—you fell for it? You fell for the _you’re gay_ hook?” he snorts through a bleeding nose, tastes blood. Punches Thomas once in the stomach for good measure. Spreads his arms wide again, eagle spread like he did in the snow. “Come ooon. I want at least three more.”

Thomas jerks his head back and forth quickly, flat cauliflower features twisting close together in confusion… stupidity… fear? “You’re crazy.”

Sherlock spits blood, grinning. “I deserve it though, don’t I? Come on. Come on, guys, back him up.”

They look at each other, then at him. He can read the wariness in their eyes so clearly. Ah, Cambridge toffs. Smarter, apparently, but weaker than the rest of the world.

The girl—Taylor—gets up, face inscrutable, and walks to the kitchenette, presumably to get another drink.

“Well, lads, let’s go, let the wanker snort the rest of this stuff.”

Easily led, then, these Cambridge idiots.

“If you see an arrogant arsehole, tall, pale, weird eyes, avoid him,” he hears Malcolm say to a passerby, “he’s a freak.”

The pain releases endorphins, prolonging the high, as he leans back on the couch, swinging his legs up onto the armrest. Long legs, spider’s legs. He covers his eyes with his forearm—how odd it is being high without red track marks. He’s beautifully wounded but it doesn’t show, not really. He wants his brilliance to show. He wants it to show more than the blood dripping slowly from his nose to his other sleeve, pooling invisibly in the black cashmere. A wave of anger floods through him. The tosser couldn’t even break his nose properly.

He can’t very well snort up when he’s got a bloody nose. He rolls his sleeve up just a little, looking at his swollen, red wrists. No, it would be hard to shoot up like this, too. He groans quietly, almost silently, snaps the rubber band so it thwacks rhythmically against his wrist, until the sharp sting becomes a continuous, dull hot throb.

Really, he feels great. High. He shouldn’t be this way and he shouldn’t be high. But he is. That’s five months gone, plus two months of rehab. Now he can add about forty-five minutes to his four cocaine years, and then weeks of withdrawal again. God, he’s about to crash. He can feel it starting in his stomach, feeling its emptiness all of the sudden. When was the last time he ate? But he doesn’t want to eat now. His stomach is rolling as quickly as his heart is, galloping along like a good horse. His body is well trained, obedient to cocaine.

He can’t stay here. Somehow, he has to get off this couch and crash in his own rooms. He can’t risk being found. He can’t risk being expelled. He has to hide this. So he was stupid. He won’t be stupid now; he actually can’t be, not with the cocaine rushing through him. He’ll have to find a way to make it to class without appearing ill, he’ll have to get Mycroft off his back….

He staggers to the bathroom, thoughts skittering around like pinballs. Grasps the sink with both hands and shudders over it, trying to shake out the inevitable tremors before they arrive. Rolls his sleeves up and holds his arms out in front of the mirror. His face is pale as ice but his wrists are swollen and a fevered red. He washes away the evidence on his nose and upper lip, the paper towel coming away pink like a dream. The evidence on his arms will disappear soon. He digs his nails into the hot welt, trying to squeeze some blood out. Sometimes, if he snaps his rubber band long enough, the skin breaks oh so delicately and tiny droplets of blood ooze up. The way it is now, with luck, he’ll have some mottled bruises to look at and to press for pain, though he’s observed that the bruises rarely last. His eyes are pale and crystalline right now, contrasting with the black pools of his pupils blown wide. He’s never liked his eyes; they change too much.

He stares at himself until he’s not sure the man staring back at him is he. The other man’s eyes bore into his own. For all his intellect and his soaring IQ, the distinct feeling pulls at him that the other man’s eyes are dogging him, turning him so his back is to the mirror.

He closes his eyes. He’s wiped away the evidence. If he stays in dim areas, he should be all right for the time being. He supposes if Irene Adler can get away with cavorting about naked with a riding crop, she knows how to throw a party without attention from the police. He bites his lip. He almost wants to be arrested. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Then it all happens very quickly.

The door opens, Sherlock sees a flash of dark gold, and John blurts, “Oh, sorry.”

He knows what it looks like. His sleeves are pushed up, exposing his red-welted forearms. He’s leaning against the sink, hunched over like he can’t look at himself. Depending on how observant John is, his dilated pupils might cause suspicion. He rolls his sleeves down and snorts. He may be extraordinary in most regards, but the way his breakdowns present is stereotypical in the extreme—dull. All that’s missing are tears but he’s too high to feel sad.

“John!” he says, turning towards the interloper calmly. Calmness always confounds outsiders. “How are you enjoying the party?”

“It’s going okay…” John glances down at Sherlock’s wrists, hidden beneath crusty black cashmere.

Sherlock sticks his hands in his pockets to hide the impending shakes and to fake nonchalance. “I heard some idiot got in a fight.”

“Yeah, but it didn’t last long, and I heard the _other_ party left,” John looks at Sherlock carefully.

His heart begins to gallop again. “Meaning?”

“Sherlock, are you alright?” John sighs, putting his own hands in his pockets. _Purposefully neutral body language,_ Sherlock thinks angrily. Who does John think he’s fooling?

“I’m fine.”

“You sure?”

“Stop looking at me like that,” Sherlock snaps, turning back to the mirror where he can police both himself and John. John tries smoothing out his brow but keeps looking at him through the mirror.

“I’m only asking because—”

“Yes, why _are_ you asking?” he bites at the man in the mirror. “You’ve met me _twice._ ”

“Well, I… I didn’t _see_ the fight, but I heard some people talking about the tall, pale, weird-eyed… er…”

Oh. He’ll help him out, then. “Your altruism is not appreciated or needed, John. Impose your definition of _fine_ on other—”

John touches his arm lightly. Just a tap. He can feel it down to his fingertips. His entire arm shakes, sending something, an _emotion_ , quaking through him, trapping him…

“ _Don’t touch me,_ ” hisses, spinning around, keeping his hands in his pockets, which have started to tremble.

John steps back quickly, hands in the air. “Okay. Okay. Sorry.”

He whirls by John, whipping a hand out to open the door, John grabbing his wrist.

John grabbing his wrist?

He blinks, looking down. John’s hand is clenched around his swollen wrist, and _oh_ it looks like his welts have broken, because he can feel the fibers of his shirt clinging to the wound. Every fiber expanding and expanding until it’s all he can feel.

“Sherlock,” the voice comes from afar, “you should stay with us tonight.”

He can feel John staring at the way his hand is shaking, even as he holds it tight, before he looks up, seeing his face.

John’s face is blank, his dark blue eyes calm, always calm, fixed on his hand with all the morbid fascination of a doctor. He’s probably going through a checklist of medical ailments…

“I thought I told you not to touch me.” His voice sounds distant to him. There’s an odd ringing in his ears—his elegy. He’s frozen—he can’t wrench his arm away or—

“Sherlock…”

He looks away. This is it. After all, he never thought John Watson was stupid. He waits, heart sprinting, chest heaving with it.

“Sherlock, Christ, will you look at me?”

That’s unexpected. The wry exasperation, the near-sarcasm in John’s voice. He looks at John.

He is steady. Everything about him is steady—his hand and his eyes and his voice—even as he must be calculating exactly how dilated his pupils are—as he says, “Sherlock… you’re… _drunk_ … I don’t want you wandering round campus like this.”

He almost laughs. “Nothing would happen to me.”

“Looking like that?” John raises his eyebrows. “Half the school wants to jump you.”

“It’s good to know where you stand on these things,” Sherlock smirks, and John takes that as an agreement, and it’s so _easy_ to follow him to the closet where there’s an extra blanket and pillow, and John lets him into Irene and his suite, and points him to the couch, and gives him a glass of water.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should note that I've never actually done any drugs at all. So just FYI, I'm using lots of creative license with Sherlock's drug addiction and drug use, plus some research. If it seems totally unrealistic, feel free to leave a comment and let me know how I can improve the story.
> 
> I am a self harmer though, so I'm slightly more comfortable writing about that.
> 
> Next chapter: meeting Irene and finding out more about Sherlock's past. 
> 
> Also, I, myself, am a huge Kurt Cobain fan. Please excuse Thomas. :D
> 
> Thank you for reading, and as always, thank you for your feedback.


	6. Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He supposes crying is for people who have been taken away from something or who have lost something. The thing is, he's never had anything to lose and he’s never had anyplace that was his.

He didn’t cry when he was with Victor. He didn’t cry when he was cold and lost and alone on London’s streets.

He didn’t cry when he was arrested and put back into Mycroft’s hands. He didn’t cry when Mycroft put him in rehab.

He didn’t cry in rehab, even when he was alone in his room. Mycroft had gotten him a single. He’d tried to cry, tried to get it all out so he wouldn’t have to cry again, but the tears wouldn’t come.

He can’t remember the last time he cried.

He wonders if he should be crying now.

Shaking on John’s faded couch, huddled in John’s old, lint-ridden fleece blanket, he feels like he’s already been expelled, like he was never at Cambridge at all. Stupid of him, because he’s at Cambridge right now.

He never wanted to go to university anyway—he’s taken all he can from institutional learning—but Mycroft’s condition to getting him out of serving jail time was that he go to rehab and attend university. He chose Cambridge over Oxford to spite him, though between being himself, running away, and the drugs, he’s pissed Mycroft off irreversibly, so choosing Cambridge probably doesn’t add much to the chasm between them. Besides, eclipsing all, and ruining whatever fun there might still be in outraging Mycroft, is the utter lack of enthusiasm, the utter lack of caring he has about being here, being anywhere at all, really.

Yes, he is at Cambridge now and has been since September….

Fresher’s week, he’d stood in the central courtyard surrounded by gushing students staring wide-eyed at the gothic architecture, the ancient traditions, the sacred scholarly environment. He’d taken it all in in a glance. It was nothing he hadn’t seen before—he’s read books on architecture, after all, recognizing the centuries the buildings were built, and which architectural changes were made after the university appropriated the town’s houses…. Recognized at once the genus of ivy on the walls, the type of fertilizer used on the lawns…. Real life is rarely more exciting than books.

Mycroft had dropped him off by his college. The chauffeur—a new one signifying Mycroft’s promotion—took his bags out of the trunk and set them on the kerb. “You’ve had your first chance,” Mycroft said, looking down his nose at the ferrule of his umbrella, “and now I know what to look for. Don’t stray, Sherlock, or I _shall_ know and be forced to contact Father.”

There wasn’t much to say after that. Mycroft drove away and Sherlock hauled his bags up the stairs into his dormitory. He put sheets on his bed, wiped down the dresser, closet, and desk, and unpacked his clothing. His sheets are plain and white and there are no posters. After all, this isn’t home.

The first day, he lay on his bed watching the trees sway with the wind through his open window. He listened to students chatter, shriek with delight, introduce themselves. Parents shaking hands. He listened for pockets of silence. He lay there until the warmth rushing in from the window became cold and it was dark. He lay there, waiting it out, hiding it out, Cambridge not much more than the underside of a bridge or a shop awning, still, as if he were lying at the bottom of the sea as it rushed over him.

He supposes crying is for people who have been taken away from something or who have lost something. The thing is, he’s never had anything to lose and he’s never had anyplace that was his.

 

[Where r u?]

[I’ve gone back to my rooms, Molly. Sorry to have left you so suddenly. –SH]

[Ok. Im heading off too. See u tomrw!! :)]

 

Sleep is a long time coming.

 

The walls of Dr Albersheim’s office are littered with diplomas and a medium sized poster of shards of ice sticking asymmetrically out of cold water. White-blue clashes with pale ochre. In the distance, another pile of ice reaches towards the sky. There is something luminous in the ice, some original light caught in its surfaces that extend into the blue air. The treacherous landscape sits captured in a thick, steel frame behind carefully polished glass.

The rest of the office is decorated accordingly. A steel chair behind the glass desk. Shoved to the corner, a pale cedar cabinet with a cold metal frame like a vice. Two wooden Eames chairs atop a smooth grey carpet, a short oval table between them. All in all, a very well appointed room. Modern, with the best furnishings. Sterile.

He’s sitting in one of the Eames chairs facing Dr Albersheim. He can see the window, but his back is to the door. He’s not sure which he prefers. This way, though, he can see a fraction of the marigolds in the rehab’s garden. He hasn’t been allowed out yet.

“How are you feeling?” asks Dr Albersheim. He watches her as if from a great distance. Her knobby, arthritic, taloned hands are folded neatly on her pantsuit-clad knee. Her legs are crossed, one foot dangling inches above the carpet. She wears her coarse, dyed-black hair in a frizzy bob. Her features are hawkish, her skin wrinkled. She is unforgivingly professional.

“Alright.”

“You’ve just finished detoxing. Has your outlook on the future changed at all now you’ve gotten past this hurdle?”

Yes. He’s now surrounded by the other recoverers: lethargic skeletons, silent fleshless specters. He’d rather be alone, if this is how reality is. On the street hunting high after high there is movement, action. Things happen. He dreamed.

“No.”

“You still want to… become a footballer?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Isn’t that what everyone wants to be?”

“Maybe. But what do _you_ want to do?”

“Footballer.”

“Really?”

“Can’t I want what other people want? Is that so shocking?”

“For some reason, you seem different.”

“You mean I’m a freak.”

“Of course not.”

“…”

“Your brother sent some things along. He seemed most put out when we told him he couldn’t see you yet.”

“He already knew. Just wanted you to be apologetic and pity him so you’d let him deliver whatever he delivered.”

“Then why did he send anything at all?”

“He wants to occupy me so I don’t try to escape.”

“…”

“…”

“He sent you… _Nouvelles Observations sur Les Abeilles_ by Francois Huber, which looks like an original French copy, or at least a very old one, and your violin.”

“…”

“Now do you see why I doubt you want to become a footballer?”

“…”

“I didn’t know you spoke French.”

“If you’re going to talk about what Mycroft sent me, why haven’t you given it to me?”

“You’ll get them when this session is over.”

“You’ve been talking to Mycroft about me. There are no gifts. They don’t exist. He never sent anything.”

“…”

“I can read it from your smug posture, the way you’ve neglected to treat yourself to a manicure until today, the telltale—”

“You’re very paranoid.”

“…”

“…”

“Because I’m here.”

“Here?”

“Sitting in this office with you of all people. Besides. I am being perfectly reasonable. You say Mycroft sent me something. It’s mine. I want to have it. You say I can’t. Why shouldn’t I doubt the existence of these gifts?”

“I want you to cooperate and learn patience. You never were good at patience.”

“Then you’re an idiot.”

“You don’t trust your brother.”

“Obvious.”

“You don’t trust me.”

“Why should I? You’re a stranger.”

“Still, this level of mistrust—”

“Is perfectly normal.”

“…”

“There is nothing wrong with me.”

“…”

“There is nothing wrong with me!”

“But there _could_ be something wrong with you.”

“There really _isn’t_.”

“Not accepting that fact is a sign that there could be something wrong.”

“…”

“Sherlock. You know that many people who rely on drugs often rely on them to treat undiagnosed mental disorders. It’s my job as your rehabilitation therapist to see if there’s a diagnosis I can make.”

“Don’t talk to me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m stupid.”

“Your mother… she had bipolar disorder?”

“…”

“…”

“So?”

“How did your family deal with it?”

“I assume he’s already told you everything, because I don’t remember ever telling you about my mother.”

“He did tell me some things during your intake.”

“…”

“…”

“My mother was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. That doesn’t mean I have it.”

“But it does raise the chances of you having a mental disorder.”

“You can’t make a diagnosis _._ I’m depressed and anxious from withdrawal. It’ll mess up the data. Are you _sure_ all those diplomas are yours?”

“You’re very hostile.”

“I learnt from the best.”

“Your mother?”

“You.”

“I see.”

Crosses her legs again. Bitch. At least he has experience with that. The black of her eyes glints and his bones feel weary. He presses into his hard, wooden chair. Molds himself to the discomfort of the wealthy.

“So you don’t want to talk about it?”

“…”

“If you want to get out of here—and I want you to, too—you’ll have to talk.”

Babied and terrorized.

“So you _were_ trained by him.”

“Maybe so. Does it change anything to have it confirmed?”

“…”

“Reasoning won’t work here, Sherlock. But you have experience with that.”

Utter peace outside. The marigolds are still. There is no breeze.

“Mummy will be very disappointed.”

There is no breath in him.

“Why are you… what are you…”

“You talk quite a bit when you’re going through withdrawal. I had no idea Mummy bothered you so.”

“She’s dead.”

“We always thought you were so _… unfeeling_. Mummy kept an eye on you as often as possible, but look where you are, Sherlock. You failed.”

“She’s dead.”

“…”

“Isn’t she?”

 _Mycroft. Why is Mycroft here?_ But it’s logical—it is. Mycroft fits in with his bespoke three-piece suit and his severe, jutting nose next to the encased poster of ice shards, the low ceiling, the clinical white walls. Towering over him.

“You were always wasting your time with that violin. If you hadn’t been born…”

A last struggling breath. “She hit me. _Mycroft_ , she hit me.”

“You upset Mummy so.”

A clench of taloned fingers.

 

He opens his eyes neither lazily nor panicked. Suddenly awake, he has no memory of being asleep, of anything extraordinary.

The moon is shining brightly. With the yellow lamplight, it spills through the open window, through the sheer white fluttering curtains, wanly onto the kitchen’s tired, linoleum floor. John keeps a small plastic pot of marigolds on the windowsill. They flutter too.

He crosses silently to the window, wrapped tightly in his blanket. The curtains are oddly bridal. Shelper’s Bridal Nocturne flits through his mind vaguely. He touches a finger to the soil. It’s been watered recently. Spent blooms scatter the soil, powering the thick growth of flower buds above them. Petals, dark gold and wild orange in the half-light, cast pebbled shadows. There is probably an equation for the exact geometry of these flowers. There is probably a way to make a poison from these flowers. He hovers a trembling palm over them, letting the imperceptible breeze brush their soft texture against him lightly.

“They’re John’s.”

Irene is standing in the doorway, wrapped in a soft moss green robe. With her hair down, curled about her shoulders, she looks both younger and wearier.

“I figured,” he says, putting his hands in his pockets.

She smiles. “I’m not the type to keep flowers. John, though, he checks on them everyday. Deadheads them, waters them. I’ve never heard him sing to them, though.”

“Because you do.”

“Right again. How did you know?”

“The way you talked during your show, it requires a certain amount of vocal training.”

A slow smirk steals across her face. “I was going to be a music major. Voice. But life interrupted.”

“Your father found out about your… proclivities and cut you off.”

“The Gender Studies department gave me a scholarship. And I’m clever. I get by.”

They stand together at opposite ends of the dark kitchen, studying each other. His attention skitters from her plain feet to her manicured hands. He can’t read much of her.

“I saw you in the show,” Irene says. “You looked afraid.”

He looks at her looking at him. Her eyes are keen and alert the way his haven’t been in a while. He stares at her. Something about her makes him feel like falling to his knees, each pulse of his heart sending hot ripples of dizziness through him. “I. I had…”

“You had a boyfriend.”

His head snaps up.

“I could tell. No one’s _afraid_ unless they’ve had bad experiences with it.”

“I—John’s ok with…?”

“He’s ok with it. It’s consensual between us. But he puts me through my paces. He’ll be a great Dom someday. Sometimes I think he’s only with me because he’s trying to learn—Sherlock?”

“No, I—” he crosses over to the fridge, reaches out with a shaking hand, and opens it. His gaze darts from the eggs to the orange juice to the bread and jam, and his stomach rolls and cramps at the same time. He doesn’t want to think about the expression his face must have been wearing, but it appears in his mind anyway, and he hates himself and Irene for putting it there. “Just hungry,” he forces out.

“Take whatever you want. John won’t mind.”

“Thanks.” He turns his back to her to take a piece of bread. He stays facing away and waits for her to leave, for catlike footsteps to retreat. She doesn’t.

“You don’t need to eat that if you don’t want to.”

He turns his head fast, keeping the rest of his body rigidly still. Does she know? How does she know? Does John know?

“John didn’t tell me, if that’s what you’re thinking. I know the signs.”

He watches her. He has to know—he has to know what she knows, what John knows. “The signs of… what?”

“The signs of—”

And then suddenly it’s unbearable, the tremors shooting through the prematurely geriatric hands in his pockets. “No. Don’t. Please don’t,” he says desperately, shutting his eyes for the briefest second. He feels naked, splayed open for her, shaking with withdrawal and fear and he wants to run. Needs to run, his heart hammering uselessly in one place. “I … I’m going to go, now. Thanks for the bread.”

Irene looks at him carefully, neutrally. “I won’t tell John,” she says, and at that moment Sherlock knows she knows everything, every stupid, miserable answer apparent in the way his hands tremble in his pockets, the way he wears long sleeves and a rubber band round his wrist, “but he’ll figure it out, if he hasn’t already.”

The light turns on, infusing the kitchen in sudden bright yellow light. “Tell me what? Why are you guys awake?” John yawns in a sleep-roughened voice. Sherlock freezes, his breath catching. He blinks against the light, squinting at him. John is running one hand through sleep-tousled hair. The movement of his arm lifts his grey long-sleeve up to expose the long, flat planes of his stomach.

Something sharp and hot and regretful jolts inside Sherlock and he averts his eyes and looks at Irene instead. She doesn’t look impressed—but why would she have to? She sees this every day—was just sleeping next to John.

“Go back to bed,” Irene says.

“No.”

Sherlock looks at the piece of bread he’s holding. Crumbs are falling dejectedly onto the floor.

Irene sighs. “You want to know what we’re talking about.”

“Damn right.”

“Well, too bad,” Irene tosses her hair on _too_. It gives her words an oddly flippant swing. Then she turns to Sherlock and sends him a big fat wink.

“Ohhh, Irene,” John moans in that sleep-roughened voice, and even as his words feel so wrong so early in the morning, Sherlock’s stomach clenches at the almost erotic noise, “please?”

“Don’t beg when you don’t mean it,” Irene grins, but she grins at Sherlock, not John.

“I thought you liked it when I begged,” John pushes his lips into a bratty little moue.

 _Begging._ How do they act like it’s a normal thing? How do they stand there, flirting about it, joking about it, when John has only just woken up? “I was just going,” Sherlock says quickly, putting the bread down. “I have an early start.”

“Going?” John asks, suddenly awake. “It’s only five, Sherlock, and if you say you’re on the rowing team, I won’t believe you.”

“Why not?”

John grins, wide, wolfish, devastating. “You’re skin and bones, string beans. I can’t imagine you waking up early just to toil along the river. You’re too smart for that.”

An accurate analysis. Sherlock forces himself to shrug. “I have to go.” He watches John bite his bottom lip, furrow his eyebrows, wriggle his toes.

“Can I at least make you breakfast?” John says.

“I—” Sherlock starts, but then John walks forward, ducking between him and the fridge and opening it.

Cold air rushes out at Sherlock like a high tide. John bends over, sticking his head in. Sherlock shivers but it’s more from John’s proximity than the fact that John’s arse is sticking out, begging to be looked at. He could reach out and touch John so easily—any part of him: his arm as it rummages around the fridge, his shoulder, his right hand that dangles by his side, still idle from sleep. Sherlock freezes, his breath catching, torn between feeling dangerously daring and reticent. He _could_ take John if he really wanted to—he _could_ touch him, smile at him, and give affection or hurt. But John is oblivious to his craving, his utter, shaking, inexplicable desire for him. And he wants to touch him anywhere, wants John to look at him, wants John to smile at him while knowing him.

He takes a step back, not taking his eyes off John. John who, if he really _knew_ Sherlock, would probably tell him, with the repulsion he knows so well in his voice, to get his hands off him in the same breath he’s using to take inventory of the contents of his fridge.

He watches John putter about his kitchen with his carefully tended marigolds and the beautiful curtains of which he’s genuinely uncertain who picked them, and thinks about trying to shake this _… sentiment…_ away from him. But the warmth he feels himself extending to John is something he seems to have woken up with one day. It’s something ordinary that grew out of him, Sherlock, and if it once wasn’t, it’s become an odd part of him. He tries to draw the boundaries to where the sentiment begins and ends and finds he can’t. He can’t put his finger on the problem; he can’t remove it.

“Beans on toast,” John mutters. “Eggs. Bacon. Avocado?”

Sherlock decides to take his own inventory. He’s standing in John’s kitchen with John and Irene after spending the night due to (he winces) John’s caretaking tendencies. All three of them go to Cambridge, probably the reason for their camaraderie. Irene knows everything. John knows….

It doesn’t make sense! Any of it. He can't think--and it might be the withdrawal and it might be John. John, with his dominatrix girlfriend, who flirted with him just the day before—Irene, who must _know_ and is just _winking_ at Sherlock. John, with his heathery jumpers and gentle smile, his steady dark blue eyes; Irene with her hawkish demeanor, the way she sees everything. John on his knees, begging and getting off on it.

Fine, Sherlock thinks, he wants to touch John. But how? How is he supposed to touch him? When he knows how painful and shameful it is?

He suddenly sees Victor in John’s place. Victor with his with nondescript brown hair and hazel eyes, who would play that game with Sherlock before giving him his drugs. Victor rummaging through his stores of cocaine just like John searches for food. Victor’s hard smile, his blown pupils. And he thinks Victor did like him—he _did_ , no matter what the situation was, and for a moment Sherlock wonders if this is what kept him going back—not the drugs, but the way Victor was too rough and knew it, knew Sherlock.

They would fuck and Sherlock would get his drugs. How is that not taking care of him, not fulfilling a promise, not loving him?

John. John with his blind kindness. He expects too much of John, Sherlock thinks. John sees but does not observe. Doesn’t know the shame he should know. The inexplicable shame that spirals through Sherlock after he's loved.

“Full English, I expect,” John straightens up and smiles at Sherlock and Irene. “What do you reckon?”

The naivety stuns him, makes him stare at John stupidly. He is vaguely aware of Irene crossing over to John and kissing his cheek, but John’s candor is like a blunt instrument and somehow it hurts more than a knife would, is more a rejection than the actual words he imagined John might say.

Either way, the nausea and fatigue are looming above him and he has to disappear before he can't hide them. And he has no desire to lift the wool from John’s eyes (which his presence would undoubtedly accomplish) about the nature of his relationship with Irene or his own sorry state. It would be better for John to continue feeling loved, desired wholly. People are either mean or naïve, and he does not want to see John polluted by hostility. He watches Irene put her arms around John, puts down the bread, shrugs off the blanket, and slips away into the cold and weak and deserted morning.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not happy with this chapter, but hopefully it explains some things. Let me know what you think!


	7. Cantabile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft has taken the liberty of ordering a bottle of wine, a fussy, syrupy Riesling. He smiles sweetly and makes a show of checking his polished pocket watch. “You’re early, Sherlock. Was it a bad lesson?”

He hits _stop_ on his iPod and wrenches off his headphones, the sweet, dire tones of Gavin Bryars’s 1990 string quartet halting abruptly. He snaps shut his book of Jacques Fabien Gautier d’Agoty’s anatomical prints—not for class, but in many ways much more informative than a textbook, and besides, their psychological landscapes offer an escape from his cravings—and sits up as fast as he can, his head aching as it spins.

It’s been three days since he slipped away from John and Irene’s flat and he hasn’t heard from them. And yet the shivers running through him and the fatigue of withdrawal cling to him like a stubborn child insistent upon his staying up late or at least his talking to John again—he doesn’t need Molly to tell him what he did was rude. But _still_. What was he supposed to have done? Stay for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and then another night? Any more unusual activity from him—and staying the night at a _friend’s_ place is unusual, thank you very much—and he would surely have broadcasted to Mycroft and even the unobservant Cambridge administration that all was not well.

But it’s not manners that have Sherlock trying to get out of bed. In the most efficient, machine-like way that he prides himself on in times like these, he has got out of bed to stand strong above his transport’s ailments because he has a violin lesson.

He looks down. His clothes are two days old but by appearances clean. He’ll do. He takes a mint, sprays a liberal cloud of Paul Smith into the air, walks through this cloud, buttons his coat, and wraps his scarf around his neck. On his walk to the music building, he’ll think of questions about Shostakovich’s first violin concerto to ask in order to waylay suspicions about his lack of practicing this week.

His phone buzzes. He picks it up quickly, hoping it’s—

 _Dinner. Tonight. –MH_ is the terse message his phone displays.

Well. He’s not at all surprised that Mycroft knows. He was expecting it, in fact. Mycroft knows everything. But he doesn’t know what’s coming. The only weight Mycroft holds over his head is forcing him to return to rehab, but surely he would want Sherlock to continue his education? Cambridge would not react favorably to another break in his education—must not know about this new _development._ And Mycroft can’t hold the threat of jail over his head anymore, so why would he order Sherlock to see him? Unless he’s got another promotion and can now send him to jail without cause….

He almost sits down again, almost uses the excuse that he is ill to avoid Mycroft’s little dinner, but Mycroft would only sneer. Besides, Mycroft’s agents will see him healthy enough to go to his violin lesson, and not letting them see him—not going to his lesson—is unacceptable. He hasn’t missed a lesson since he was seven years old.

 _I’ll be late. I have a lesson. –SH_ he sends back grudgingly. Stupid, he thinks. He should have gone to class. He files _figure out how to escape spies’ notice_ in his palace’s to-do room and sets aside any false emotion.

_I know. –MH_

With a huff he puts his phone in his pocket and takes up his leather gloves. There’ll be plenty of time to get the last word during dinner.

He wonders if last night was the last of John’s kindness he will experience. Briefly, he entertains the thought of marching to Espresso Yourself and demanding John to make him coffee—but really he’s well shot of him, Sherlock is. If he hadn’t met him, he wouldn’t have met Irene, who reminded him of Victor, which set off this… _unfortunate_ series of events. He would have kept his head down and managed.

And John, he’s well shot of Sherlock too. Sherlock, who blames him, who doesn’t know how to look at John properly, who is brittle enough to cast him as far away as he can. In a paranoid, slightly superstitious way, Sherlock thinks John might catch whatever’s wrong with him. Yes, John is better off without him. Hell, Molly would be, too, but he doesn’t actually care about her, doesn’t feel the need to occupy her, own her, pollute her.

As he walks, there is a chafing, niggling sensation in his brain. Perhaps it would tell him… it would tell him to….

He ignores it. His fingers itch to check his phone. Instead, he presses hard and without hesitation on the dotted bruises that have formed on his wrists.

He is learning the first movement of Shostakovich’s first violin concerto in A minor. The first movement is a Nocturne in moderato and he doesn’t like it. It’s too sweet, too dark, too slow. There is too much self-dramatizing vibrato throughout the entire piece. There is too much pain. The piece is precious in a way that Sherlock hates. These sorts of pieces have never been his strong suit. It isn’t that he can’t understand it, it’s that he can’t interpret it. He’ll linger on each note, trying to steep it in as much pain as he can muster, which makes the tempo lag, makes his shifting drag and misstep and his bowing heavy. He will admit, though, that the dissonances and wandering minor arpeggios are beautiful.

What he prefers is the second movement, the Scherzo that the violinist and dedicatee David Oistrakh called a Demonic Dance. He likes the intellectual and technical challenge, the way Shostakovich allows the violin to shriek, likes the horrific momentum that sends him soaring to the end. It is, he supposes, like being high. It’s why he proposed learning this piece at all. For a fleeting, then forcibly demolished moment, he wonders if he’s been pathetically chasing the high, crawling after it even after he’s been abandoned.

His teacher, though, is a traditionalist, and insists that if he wants to learn the Scherzo, he’ll have to learn all the movements, and in order. Out of the two slow movements, the Nocturne and the Passacaglia, Sherlock prefers the Passacaglia, which is less self conscious, less painful. He doesn’t care that it’s more lyrical, more melodious, less wandering than the Nocturne. Instead he likes it for its staid elegance, its deceptively simple and beautiful cadenza.

As he walks up the steps to the music building, he considers whether he might see Irene. The chances are slim, and he’s never seen her here before, but the way she had spoken in her show had indicated that her vocal work is far from rusty. But he doesn’t want to see her. He doesn’t want to see her because seeing her looking at him through sharp eyes that she seems to have stolen from him while he wasn’t looking—while he was _away—_ would be too much like looking at himself. He isn’t sure if he can stand the introspection. Not now, at least. Not when his only goal is to get through his lesson, dinner with Mycroft, the rest of his withdrawal.

There’s nothing for it, he thinks with dread as he nears his teacher’s office, each step like death knell in bass drum. He’ll just have to tell Marva he hasn’t practiced much this week. With luck he’ll be able to sight read everything—but Marva Rach isn’t just a technical litmus test—she’ll listen to how his interpretation of the piece has developed (very little), and she’ll _know_. She knows how he’s likely to interpret things, what leaps are his.

 _Think_ , he tells himself furiously as he sits on the bench by Marva’s door and stares at his music, _think._ But the student preceding him is playing a truly horrendous rendition of the first movement of Kabalevsky’s violin concerto in C major, and he finds himself stuck between the frantic shifting of the key from C major to C minor, and the notes that Shostakovich wrote blend into gibberish before his eyes. Cursing Kabalevsky for his ridiculous, unnecessary, _inconvenient_ concerto, he presses his hands to his temples and tries to think of a way to play the Shostakovich innovatively. Instead his mind falls into default mode and he is deducing, or rather running through his previous deductions of Marva Rach.

Marva Rach. The matriarch of her family now that both her parents are dead. Has one brother and sister, three nieces, and two nephews who all live in Birmingham. Siblings are jealous of her successful career doing something she loves; they express this jealousy by resenting her acquired wealth, the beauty she lives in. Favorite color is red (wears glasses with thick red frames, but not winged, so a non-fussy but considerable interest in fashion), substantial girth and the fact that he once saw her eating fast food with no guilt and a lot of relish points to a utilitarian, casual attitude towards food, the fact that she grew up in the lower-middle class, and the fact that she enjoys food to an extreme. Absence of clubbing on the fingers indicates a healthy heart despite her girth and diet. Rough callouses on one side of the fingertips point to a life dedicated to the violin….

The sloppy Kabalevsky grinds to a halt and then the telltale sound of a violin case being zipped up transmits through the heavy door and he can hear Marva telling someone, “Remember to practice in _chunks_ and notice patterns.”

And a girl replying, “Okay.”

“I don’t care if you only practice twenty minutes a day, but you need to practice everyday. You know, practicing everyday for twenty minutes is better than practicing for two hours before your lesson. You know that, right? I don’t have to tell you that.”

“No, Marva.”

Sherlock smiles sardonically to himself. Marva will be less than thrilled when she discovers she’ll have to give the _Practice!_ speech more than once today, and to Sherlock in particular, who likes to think he’s one of her best students.

The door opens to reveal a short, thin, sallow girl whose limbs seem like the most unhealthy, sticklike, awkward things Sherlock has ever seen—and he used to socialize with fellow homeless junkies. Wisps of white blonde hair float in the breeze she stirs as she ducks past him. Willing himself not to turn his head and stare and _deduce_ , Sherlock stands up and looks his teacher in the eye.

“Hello, Sherlock,” Marva says, smiling as she always does at the beginning of a lesson. It’s only at the end that her wrinkled face falls into a frown of concentration or disappointment.

Sherlock gifts her with a small smile and steps into her office. As he opens his case and attaches his shoulder rest to his beloved Guarneri, Marva says, “So what do you have for me this week?”

“I worked on some phrasing,” Sherlock says, tightening his bow. To stall, he begins rosining it.

“Interpretation!” Marva says, her eyes sparkling. “Heaven knows you need help with that.”

“Thank you,” Sherlock grunts.

“On the technical side, you’re set, so don’t even pretend to grumble,” Marva teases, but Sherlock frowns. He doesn’t want to be “set,” he wants to be _brilliant_.

He takes his time tuning, wondering if Marva will notice if he deliberately sets his violin out of tune so he can waste time tuning it again. When Marva hears that he hasn’t practiced, though, she’ll know why he’s drawing things out. He doesn’t mess with his tuning. It’s better to hide his weaknesses and insecurities.

Marva sits in her black, leather, padded swivel desk chair and fixes him with a keen gaze. (His first lesson with her, he hadn’t known this meant he should start playing and there were lots of awkward fumblings.) He draws in a deep breath, infuses himself with as much calm as he can and begins to play.

About a minute in, in the corner of his eye, he sees Marva’s eyelids droop, her head nodding at random beats. For the life of him he can never figure out if she is asleep, bored, or listening so closely she has lost control of her faculties. He thinks she may be nodding to things she approves of in his music, but at the same time, she has been teaching for a long time and probably doesn’t even need to listen to his playing to know how to correct him.

Swallowing down the irrational fear that she isn’t listening, that only he hears the sound his violin emits, he forges on, taking a deliberate breath to keep his fingers and wrists from locking.

“No.”

He stops.

“You’re still pressing the bow down too tightly with your fingers. Weight should come from the entire arm, and you won’t have to work so hard. No one likes hearing you struggle. They want to hear you _sing_. _Cantabile_.”

He nods, adjusts his grip on his bow.

“Again.”

He begins again, but he hasn’t gotten past the first line before Marva says, “No.”

Marva rolls her chair over to the music stand, taking up her own violin as she moves.

“Now this,” she says using her bow to point at the first phrase, “what’s your intention when you play it?”

“To make it… sad.”

“Sadness is a paralytic, Sherlock. You need to move the music forward. Again.”

He moves his bow over the notes his fingers pluck out, but he can’t find where the phrasing begins and ends. He wanders in the notes, in the mess of heavy sounds that slide from his violin.

“No.”

He turns towards Marva, trying to breath and remain calm and control his mind. “Isn’t it supposed to be wandering?”

“Well, you could put it that way. Another way to put it is emotionally suppressed. And yet another way is that it is an homage to Elgar’s Cello Concerto. However you interpret the music, you need to have it go somewhere.”

“So, suppressed and elegant?”

“If that’s your interpretation.”

He huffs and turns back to the stand, nearly flinging his violin onto his shoulder. He stares at the music for a second, willing it to tell him how to play it. If this is a study in suppressed pain, then there should be several bursts where he can move the music. He places his bow carefully on the strings, exactly halfway between the bridge and the fingerboard, relaxes his wrist, and plays.

“No.”

Sherlock can feel his spine bending under the pressure. And the thing is, he knows that he knows how to do this—he knows how to interpret a piece, how to play something with feeling, knows to channel weight from his arm and not his fingers. It’s just this piece in particular, with its plodding pitfalls and it’s just the fact that he was _stupid_ and he wants to press hard on his wrists again….

“You didn’t practice did you?” Marva says, and the words, said in the most nonjudgmental way, feel like the most mean-spirited thing anyone could say.

“Er…” he says. He feels slow and sluggish and not very useful. “No. I had a busy week.”

Standing, she is shorter but wider than him. So perhaps it is the advancing motion and perhaps it is the clean swipe with which she takes a sheet of music and swats at him that make him freeze, breath catching.

He cannot think for his chest is caught with betrayal. How— _how_ —could this be happening so suddenly, so unexpectedly, in such a mundane setting? How has Marva Rach, who is smart and brilliant, stood up and become his mother?

It is as though that insignificant sheet of paper has blown every heavy emotion he didn’t know he had forgotten back into his heart. He is small and far away from her and he is aware that he has ducked away from her and his whole body is facing slightly away from her as he pants.

It is a strange thing to play when one is feeling humiliated and overflowed with unexpected emotion. The sound vibrates with his body, his trembling fingers. It is proof of his heart, he supposes, and he clings to the music and uses it as a levee and at the same time tries to pour his heart into it, into something that can be heard.

“No.”

He is almost relieved to be stopped except now he is trembling and he cannot hide behind his violin. He tries to breathe. In and out and in and out. He is here and he is not there. He can hear Marva saying something in the background but he hardly knows what. He is here and not there. He stares at the music and lets it imprint into his eyes.

He can feel himself nodding and bringing his violin to his chin and playing something awful and he can hear Marva saying something—likely a _Practice!_ speech—and then Marva is Marva again and she is smiling and her hand is like a stinging nettle on his shoulder as she shepherds him out the heavy windowless door and he walks away as fast as he can with his hand over his mouth as though policing his breaths.

It is all over and he can’t really remember much of what happened like the build up of going to get a tooth pulled but then waking up with no memory of pain and no knowledge of how much time has passed. But there is no black car idling outside and he checks his phone and realizes that he has been let go from his lesson fifteen minutes early.

 

Gerard is the driver today, which means Mycroft hasn’t succeeded in getting another promotion, and that bodes well for Sherlock. He sits in the backseat fully aware that something terrible could happen to him and that the vacant gazes of passersby would still glance off the shaded windows apathetically. He himself gazes out the windows at the streets and the small town and wonders how far the car will take him.

Not far as it turns out. Gerard stops the car at the Midsummer House and Sherlock walks in alone, forcing himself to ignore the spotted hostess who looks at him askance. Mycroft is sitting alone at a table in the most shadowed corner facing the entire restaurant. Sherlock scowls, makes his way to him, and sits, turning his back to the enviable view of the river Cam.

Mycroft has taken the liberty of ordering a bottle of wine, a fussy, syrupy Riesling. He smiles sweetly and makes a show of checking his polished pocket watch. “You’re early, Sherlock. Was it a bad lesson?”

Sherlock grits his teeth. “As you well know.”

Mycroft dips his head once. “Yes, I suppose that was rather pompous of me. I apologize. I won’t tell you how I knew.”

Sherlock snorts. “I don’t need your apologies, and I know how you knew.” Mycroft lifts a fine eyebrow. Sherlock fixes him with his best glare. “Why am I here?”

“You tell me.”

“And that’s not pompous at all.”

“You tell me, Sherlock,” Mycroft says, and there is a hard edge to his voice this time. “Your… difficulties this week have not escaped my notice.”

“Then you already know.”

“I want to know the _reason_ for it all, Sherlock,” Mycroft says with great affectation.

“You want to know the _reason_ behind my withdrawal? Have you slipped?”

And Mycroft sits back, his eyes tightening. “Oh, _Sherlock_.”

And Sherlock sits back as well, as though trying to get away from himself. “You didn’t know.”

“As ever, Sherlock,” Mycroft says, regaining his arrogance, “you make the mistake of assuming me to be omniscient. In fact, I have only had reports of your not attending any classes in a week.”

“I didn’t want your spies to see me,” Sherlock mutters, head down.

“Well, the logic was _almost_ there, dear brother,” Mycroft says with a nasty smile. “If you _had_ gone to class, my people would certainly have noticed you going through withdrawal.”

Sherlock grunts, staring into the wine Mycroft has poured for him.

“Perhaps I should look into placing cameras in your rooms,” Mycroft muses, picking idly at his fingernails.

“No,” Sherlock says. He would shout, but he and Mycroft never shout. Mummy taught them otherwise. Instead his voice is strangled and even quieter.

“Are you ready to order, sirs?”

Sherlock’s head snaps up.

“Ah,” Mycroft smiles blandly at the waiter, a tall twenty-something man with dark hair and liquid eyes, a trim waist, and a rather beguiling cockney accent. “Yes, thank you. I will have the seven course option.”

“And would you like that with cheeses from our trolley?”

“Yes, I think so,” Mycroft says, plummy.

“And for you?”

Sherlock fumbles for his menu. He doesn’t know what his stomach can take yet, so he opts for the smallest item on the menu. “The five course option, thank you.”

“I’m sorry, sir, the five course option is only available for lunch.”

“The seven course option, then.”

“And would you like—”

“No cheese, _thank you_.”

They watch the waiter go. Sherlock, who was so quick to dismiss him, finds himself wishing he were still inserting himself between he and his brother.

“Sherlock,” Mycroft says in a sotto voice even after the waiter has disappeared into the kitchens, “I’m only doing this for your own good.”

Sherlock bites his lips, the word _please_ a heavy bitter taste on his tongue. “No,” he whispers. “Don’t. What would it give you except a faster reaction time? Five days is not very important—I’ve been detoxing, I’ve haven’t given into the fresh cravings.”

“A faster reaction time, brother dear, is the difference between an overdose and a death,” Mycroft says, lifting an eyebrow. “As you well know.”

To this he can say nothing. He clenches his teeth on frantic, irrational words, on hazy, incomplete memories.

“The problem with you, Sherlock, is that the only thing you excel at is making people upset.”

Sherlock blinks heavily, suddenly very tired. It’s the withdrawal that forces the torturous combination of extreme fatigue and the inability to sleep and what little sleep he does manage is tinged with disconcerting dreams. And yet, his teeth unclenching, the struggle leaving him, he thinks it could also be Mycroft’s words drumming a low tattoo inside him. “I know,” he whispers.

“Mummy was so upset. Father was so upset. You even upset Dr Albersheim. Did you upset Marva Rach today as well?”

Sherlock keeps his eyes on his wine glass and his expression blank. He wants to tear himself apart and instead floats away from himself very quietly.

“I give you the Guarneri and you waste your violin lessons. I put you in rehab and get you into your school of choice and you squander those, too. How many chances should I give you, brother mine, before I give up?”

Their waiter interjects and sets two plates down. Perhaps picking up on the atmosphere, his voice is not as bright as before as he says, “Smoked haddock, potato, pickled onion, and caviar, gentlemen.”

He makes himself scarce and there is a lull in the conversation.

Then: “Eat, Sherlock. I didn’t bring you to dinner only to watch you not eat.”

Sherlock watches his brother tuck in to his haddock. He takes small bites and his hands are relaxed around the restaurant’s shining cutlery but these do not hide the relish with which he eats. Instead of eating, Sherlock takes up his wine and sips at it steadily. Mycroft watches his progress keenly and Sherlock puts the glass down, feeling somehow chastised.

The haddock has been delicately smoked and falls to pieces the moment it is placed in his mouth. Against his will, his mouth waters and he scoops more up.

“Elbows off the table, brother dear,” Mycroft says.

Sherlock slides his hands under the table and presses on his bruises. “What’s the next course?”

“You didn’t look at the menu?”

“Well, you didn’t give me time did you?”

Mycroft hums as though saying _your fault_. “The next course is celeriac baked on open coals, hazelnut, hollandaise, celery and wood sorrel.”

“You memorized that, didn’t you.”

“Obviously.”

The celeriac arrives and Mycroft digs in. Sherlock makes a face and eats only the hazelnuts.

“I must say, this is defying my expectations,” Mycroft says mildly.

“Because you thought a restaurant with such a clichéd name as the _Midsummer_ House could never make a good celeriac.”

“No,” Mycroft says. “Because it lives up to its reputation, and that is a rare thing indeed.”

“You would eat anything, Mycroft.” Sherlock watches the affront on Mycroft’s face appear and disappear gracefully.

“At least I am not causing the chef undue worry,” Mycroft says, eyeing Sherlock’s full plate.

“As if the chef needs your compliments,” Sherlock says.

“I could very easily make him need my compliments, Sherlock, and you know it.”

Sherlock stiffens as the next course arrives.

“Everything alright here?” the waiter asks, his rough accent juxtaposed with the fine French morsels and large white plates.

“Yes, thank you,” Mycroft smiles.

“Roast quail, shallot purée, grapes, celery and sour dough,” the waiter recites.

Mycroft doesn’t take up his fork and knife this time and instead stares at Sherlock. “I wonder if your cocaine abuse is related to one… Victor Trevor?”

Sherlock blinks, calculates furiously. “Who?”

“Don’t be stupid, Sherlock. You talk quite a bit when you’re detoxing, and naturally I have read your rehabilitation records.”

“What did I say?” Sherlock asks and his heart is in his throat.

Mycroft smiles. “Nothing of import. I gathered that he was some sort of _boyfriend_. Perhaps I should pull him in for questioning.”

“That’s not necessary, Mycroft. I’m surprised you think there’s more to it. He was just a stupid phase I had.”

“Hm,” Mycroft says, glancing at his wine glass, which remains unsipped. “Now, the main problem I see here is how we are going to keep this from the administration.”

And Sherlock lets out a relieved, invisible breath and at the same time feels himself collapsing into his body the way he shrunk after Mummy finished with him in her study and Mycroft was away at school. And with great effort he raises his eyes to Mycroft who is regarding him with a cool, even stare. He is the machine, not Sherlock, and Sherlock both regrets and is glad for it.

“I am tempted to tell Father about everything, you know,” Mycroft says. “But I doubt he would like to be upset.”

“You can upset him for all I care,” Sherlock says.

“You seem to forget that when he is pulled away from his line dancing he is absolutely monstrous,” Mycroft says, donning that infuriating smile.

“I don’t care,” Sherlock says and he doesn’t. He doesn’t care if he’ll hurt Father. He _wants_ to hurt Father and Mycroft and Marva. All of a sudden, he thinks it would be marvelous if Father were hurt. It would be payback. It would be what he is due, for leaving him with Mummy. He feels a great separation yawning between he and Mycroft, and he likes it there, likes the distance.

“Well, I won’t tell Father just yet, and I will of course keep this from the administration. I can pull some strings; Clive, the first year dean, is an old friend. I _will_ be putting cameras in your room, Sherlock. And I don’t care if Cambridge persuades you not to return. You _will_ be going back to rehabilitation if you relapse again, and I _will—_ ”

“For god’s sake, Mycroft,” Sherlock says quietly. “Why are you telling me this?”

“It has to do with you, doesn’t it?”

“Not really. It’s more to do with you.” And it’s true and yet not exactly true. It has everything to do with Mycroft, and Sherlock is just so… _ready_ to let it all go. The further he loses control of his life, the less it’s his. And the less it’s his, the better.

So he cannot sit here any longer. He will live with the cameras in his rooms when they come, will take all the consequences. But he cannot sit here any longer through the rest of the courses and then dessert and coffee.

The next course is coming their way. He must leave before it arrives. He wants to tell Mycroft to enjoy eating both their dinners but bites it down where it struggles against his chest. This must be what it is to be an adult. He stands and Mycroft opens his mouth, and Sherlock cuts him off. “Goodbye, Mycroft. I think I’ll go now. I think I’ll go right now.”

Perhaps it’s the odd finality. Mycroft’s elastic face is icy and motionless. As Sherlock walks out, legs heavy, he hears Mycroft make his excuses to the unsuspecting waiter, covering for him.

He ignores the spotty hostess. He goes out the way he came in. Gerard is leaning against the car, cigarette in a gloved hand. He does not know what Mycroft told him about their meeting tonight, but Gerard looks surprised to see him exiting alone.

“Sir,” Gerard says, fumbling for the car’s door.

Something wolfish rises in him. “I’ll walk,” he snaps.

“Sir—”

“I’ll walk.”

Gerard shrinks back and it occurs to Sherlock that Gerard is afraid of him not just because he is Mycroft Holmes’s brother, but because he sees Sherlock clearly, right down to his monstrous core that wants to hurt.

Night has fallen. Gerard does not follow him. Once he is a safe ways away from the restaurant, halfway between the town and his college, Sherlock closes his eyes. The black of his eyelids is blacker than the night. Somehow this is fitting. He tilts his head back feeling its weight at the top of his spine. He looks into the black of his eyelids for stars and a moon but sees nothing. Perhaps his world is trapped somewhere deeper inside him. He thinks about heaving a great roar. But he stays still as though waiting for something and swallows the roar down. He does not even breathe, he is so scrupulously still.

It dawns on him then, as though he does have a world of his own inside him, that he could really use some cocaine right now. And that though he thought he was craving this past week he has not known real craving until now.

His phone buzzes. He opens his eyes and his phone is lit searing brightly into his eyes. Dreading Mycroft’s interference, he swipes it open.

 _Rough night, Sherlock?_ it reads.

He freezes. The only people with his number are Mycroft and Molly. This could not be from Mycroft, and Molly is in the habit of using abbreviations and emoticons and would not be so forward. And yet this is obviously a message intended for him. His mind fixes on the puzzle, flicking through images of all his acquaintances, calculating….

 _Good night, Irene,_ he types back.

The reply comes almost immediately.

_I knew you would get it._

  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Midsummer House is a real restaurant in Cambridge. I, heathen that I am, have never been to a restaurant that serves more than a one-course meal, and I was really shocked to discover their menu. http://www.midsummerhouse.co.uk


End file.
